The Friendly Bounce Belt: Zach LaVine and Space Jam take the title

Welcome back to the Friendly Bounce Belt, our weekly power rankings of awesome moments in the NBA. Last time, Chris took Rudy Gay and a nice dunk as his champion. Let’s see who took home the title this week.

The Champion: Zach LaVine Space Jamming. 

I’m not going to lie. This one was a pretty easy call considering I am 25 years old and grew up watching Space Jam a lot. So when Zach LaVine got the Quad City DJs to introduce him, put on a Toon Squad jersey and then threw down this dunk he had already won.

https://vine.co/v/OPPn1VD3qOT

(h/t to  Vinnyviner for the vine)

There wasn’t a single thing that he could do to lose at that point, though he was tested more than I thought possible.

The Contenders: 

Westbrook being Westbrook. 

Russell Westbrook scored an almost record 41 points on Sunday night in the NBA All-Star game and provided us with a few highlights including hitting his head on the backboard.

(vine via Fansided)

Considering Russ did it by just spotting up for super long threes and running hard at the rim for oops and tip dunks it was one of the most fun performances to watch in a while.

Oladipo spins: 

(h/t to cvbg22 for the vine)

Zach LaVine won the dunk contest like many people expected but he was also pushed pretty hard by Victor Oladipo who threw down this nasty spinning dunk. Some people have questioned calling it a 540 but no matter what it was it was impressive. I would say more about it but Chris still things Oladipo is better than Giannis Antetokounmpo and I don’t want to give him anything he can use to keep thinking that wrong thought.

Dirk dunks: 

(h/t to Steve Noah for the vine)

No seriously Dirk Nowitzki dunked and then did the Vince Carter celebration. We all win on this one.

Rudy Gobert won Twitter. 

The halftime show during Sunday’s All-Star game was something that drew plenty of different opinions throughout basketball Twitter. No one expressed their thoughts like Utah Jazz big man Rudy Gobert though.