Longtime Cardozo boys high school basketball coach Ron Naclerio watched Obi Toppin’s alley oop dunk in the fourth quarter of the Knicks win over the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night and was impressed.
But Naclerio, who goes way back in New York City high school hoops, said that Toppin’s dunks still don’t measure up to those of his father, Obadiah Sr., known in the 1990s on the playgrounds as “Dunkers Delight.”
“That dunk [by Obi] was nice but people that go back to like 1992, ‘93, ‘94 would have seen Obi on a higher level because his father, Dunkers Delight, he was up there as far as the dunking,” Naclerio said Thursday by phone following the Knicks 101-92 victory in Game 2.
“I think the greatest dunker that I’ve seen in the New York City area in the last 30-40 years was my kid [Ryan] ‘Special FX’ [Williams] but Obadiah might be there for No. 2.”
Though Obi Toppin is considered a Brooklyn native (who also briefly attended Ossining High School), Naclerio said Obadiah was a Queens kid who attended Martin Van Buren and Bayside High Schools.
“Whatever park I went to, he was there,” Naclerio said. “That was before the 3-point line, it was amazing. He would go up for like a foul line jump shot and try to dunk. He had range on his dunks. You know how Steph Curry has range on his 3s? He had range on his dunks.
“What was weird about him was, every time he shot a 6-footer or a 10-footer, the shot always looked like it was going to be a foot or two short but it just managed to get over the rim and in. He had such a soft touch.”
Obadiah never met the academic eligibility requirements to play college basketball, but he competed in the old And1 Streetball tour and participated in a 2006 Gatorade commercial with Vince Carter, Dwyane Wade and Ben Wallace.
His sons Obi and Jacob saw him plenty on the playgrounds and were inspired by their dad.
“Oh, his game’s terrific,” Obi, who led Division 1 in dunks during the 2019-20 season at Dayton when he won the Naismith Trophy and Wooden Awards, said earlier this season on ESPN’s “Jalen and Jacoby.”
“If you go on YouTube and look up his highlights, he was a park legend. Rucker Park, Dyckman, West Fourth, all the city parks. If you go there and ask who Snoop is or Obi Sr, they going to know exactly who you’re talking about.”
Jacob Toppin now plays at Kentucky under coach John Calipari, who coached five current Knicks in Derrick Rose (at Memphis), Julius Randle, Nerlens Noel, Immanuel Quickley and Kevin Knox.
“I used to watch [my dad] play all the time when I was younger, whether it was in street ball games or in the city playing at parks,” Jacob said earlier this season on a Zoom call. “He was a great player. He was very energetic like my brother, and he was very athletic.”
Obadiah was in Atlanta for the NBA Dunk Contest in March to watch his son, who lost 3-2 to Portland’s Anfernee Simons in the final round.
“I’m very excited and anxious,” Obadiah told The Post before the contest. “I know he’s going to do what he do.”
Now Obadiah comes to games to watch Obi and the other Knicks thrill the Garden faithful in the team’s first playoff appearance since 2013. Obi’s mother Roni is also a constant presence at the Garden.
“I was hoping the TV cameras found his father because his father gets to every game early and starts putting it live on Facebook from his section,” Naclerio said.
Though Toppin only averaged 4.1 points and 2.2 rebounds after becoming the No. 8 pick in the draft, he’s averaging 6.5 points and 2.0 rebounds in two playoff games.
“You can see that everything [Obadiah] wanted to do as a kid, he has made sure that his older son, and his younger son never came across any of those pitfalls,” Naclerio said.
