The NBA, as you know, has rejected Dwight Howard's request to raise the rim to 12 feet during the dunk contest for two successive years.
What I hadn't heard until this week is that standard NBA rims apparently can't be raised more than a couple inches higher than the regulation 10 feet ... and that even such minor adjustments are seriously time-consuming.
It was brought to our attention that rim height actually can't be easily changed with the help of hydraulics as widely presumed. The league maintains that the only way to make rim-raising an option during the annual All-Star Weekend contest is by bringing in a special third basket with that capability. Which does raise the question: Where do you put it?
League officials insist that such logistical concerns are largely behind the refusal. Orlando's Howard and fellow dunk competitors Gerald Green and Rudy Gay all wanted the option of raising the rim to 12 feet (or higher) during the contest Howard wound up dominating in New Orleans.
Which makes a lot more sense, frankly, than the league's previous claims that moving the rim clashed with their intent to apply as many NBA rules to All-Star Weekend contests as possible. No contest already breaks more rules of the game than the dunk contest.
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Well if this is true they should've just said it in the first place instead of giving us that BS response that sounded ridiculous. If they had said this in the first place everyone would've said "alright, I understand their point".
Not a big deal I guess, still got to see some amazing dunks from Dwight, and he won. So no biggie. But next year if he comes back I'd like to see them find a way to get this done.
