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Larry Nance, Jr. may not have competed in the NBA Dunk Contest yet due to ill-timed injuries during his first two seasons in the league, but he’s put on his own exhibitions during games several times.
There was his destruction of Festus Ezeli and the time he nearly sent David West into retirement, but there is no doubt about what his most emphatic jam has been thus far. Nance’s posterization of now-Lakers teammate Brook Lopez stands alone as Nance’s Michelangelo, his pièce de résistance.
After a big social media campaign from the Lakers, their fans and Nance himself, the NBA made that designation official on Monday night at the league’s inaugural NBA Awards Show, in which the fan vote carried Nance to victory as the league’s first-ever Dunk of the Year award winner.
Oh wait. No, they didn't, because they gave it to Victor Oladipo instead. Watch the dunk below and tell me it was better than the one from Nance right below it. That's right, you can't:
That December night in Atlanta. That dunk! Victor Oladipo! Fans voted it the NBA's #DunkoftheYear! #NBAAwards. #ThunderUp pic.twitter.com/CQYnDFuNn4
— OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) June 27, 2017
Larry Nance, Jr. ends Brook Lopez with the dunk of the yearLarry Nance, Jr. threw down the dunk of the year for the LA Lakers! RIP Brook Lopez.
Posted by Silver Screen and Roll on Thursday, December 15, 2016
Did Oladipo change someone's Wikipedia page to say they were dead? I DIDN'T THINK SO:
lmao someone changed Lopez's wikipedia page to say he's dead: pic.twitter.com/aaqIYFCBkw
— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) December 15, 2016
Larry was a bit... salty after getting robbed:
— Larry Nance Jr (@Larrydn22) June 27, 2017
This is arguably the biggest snub in NBA history.
Harrison Faigen is co-host of the Locked on Lakers podcast (subscribe here), and you can follow him on Twitter at @hmfaigen.