Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Slam scam’s behind him
Jones says he’s ‘cool’ with Gordon as dunk rivals prepare to meet
MIAMI — The silliness became a bit too real, Derrick Jones Jr. said.
That has the uber-athletic Miami Heat forward glad that reality will return to the equation
Wednesday night, when the Orlando Magic visit AmericanAirlines Arena.
The game will be the first meeting between Jones and Aaron Gordon — provided Gordon is back from the knee issue that kept him out Monday night — since the two competed as finalists in the All-Star dunk contest that has many still questioning the result.
“Me and him, our relationship hasn’t changed,” Jones said. “We’re cool people. We ain’t got no problem with each other.”
Problem with the judging and scoring system, however, is another story, one that has Gordon, twice a contest runner-up, insisting he is through with the competition.
While Jones was declared the winner in a dunk-off, edging Gor
don by a single point, two weeks after the fact, former Chicago Bulls forward Scottie Pippen, a judge in the Feb. 15 contest, said on ESPN that the panel had planned to leave the two tied, requiring yet another round of attempts.
“There was a little bit of a pact, but somehow we punched the scores in and they came up wrong,” Pippen said. “We just messed up … and the reality of it is we thought we were giving them both a tie in the final round.”
Jones’ former Heat teammate Dwyane Wade, who was among the five judges, initially came under scrutiny for chicanery. But Pippen ultimately offered a less sinister take.
“I tried to figure the numbers out and I didn’t do real good in math,” he said of scoring that final round as a nine for Gordon. He said when he attempted to change his score to a 10, “the machines locked us out and that was it.”
So the spoils went to Jones, both the trophy and a resulting seven-figure sneaker contract with Puma.
“I heard that, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jones said of Pippen’s explanation. “But it didn’t work out, so I got the trophy with me.”
And, yet, had Gordon met Jones’ eye test, Jones said he would have handed over the hardware regardless of the judging.
The competition ended, after Jones’ had scored a 48 out of 50 on his final dunk, when Gordon was awarded a 47 after barely failing to fully clear 7-foot-6 Boston Celtics rookie center Tacko Fall on his successful final attempt.
“Like I’ve said before,” Jones said by his locker at AmericanAirlines Arena, “if he had cleared him, I’d have given him a 50 myself. Even if they tried to give me the trophy, I’d have handed it to him.
“But he didn’t clear him, so it’s hard to give somebody a 50 when you don’t clear the person you’re trying to jump over. I said they should have at least given him a 48, so we could go back and forth again.”
Jones, 23, said he had plenty left.
“That’s what I would have loved,” he said.
Instead he has moved on, as has the season, with the Heat in a tight battle for potential homecourt advantage in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, and the Magic scrambling to avoid the No. 8 seed and an opening-round series against the league-leading Milwaukee Bucks.
Had Wednesday’s game been scheduled for Orlando’s Amway Center, Jones might have found himself dealing with contest fallout. Instead, he figures Gordon and the Magic to have more significant priorities, especially with Orlando coming off Monday’s home blowout loss to the Portland Trail Blazers.
“He ain’t worried about that,” Jones said. “He’s worried about playing basketball, not a dunk contest. I hope so. That’s what we’re here for.
“We’re not here to just go for All-Star Weekend. We’re here to play basketball and get better and make our team better and do whatever it takes to get wins.”