Oklahoma City Thunder guard Hamidou Diallo may have won the Slam Dunk Contest at All-Star Weekend but his rise to stardom didn’t come without some bumps along the road.
As teammate Paul George said at the time, Diallo had his introduction to Shaqtin’ a Fool after he missed a windmill dunk attempt back on Nov. 14 against the New York Knicks.
Diallo stole the ball from the Knicks and ran down to the other end of the court for what should have been an easy fastbreak dunk. Instead, he lost the ball on his way up and was unable to complete the windmill dunk.
The crew over at Shaqtin’ compiled the ‘Best of the Worst’ highlights from the 2018-19 season and, to the surprise of Diallo, he didn’t make the group of finalists.
Instead, the four finalists included Houston Rockets forward P.J. Tucker, Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade, some questionable defense by the Detroit Pistons and a lost season by the Los Angeles Lakers.
Needless to say: Diallo was happy about his exclusion.
Like most Shaqtin’ nominees, the Thunder guard was able to laugh about his dunk after the fact and was a good sport about the play. He’ll probably make sure it doesn’t happen again, though.
Diallo averaged 3.7 points and 1.9 rebounds in 51 games this season.
