Portland Trail Blazer rookie Rudy Fernandez, a native of Spain, will become the first international player to participate in the Sprite Slam Dunk competition to be held during NBA All-Star Saturday Night Feb. 14, at US Airways Center (8 p.m. ET on TNT) in Phoenix, the NBA
announced today.
Fernandez was selected as the fourth and final participant exclusively through an online vote on NBA.com, marking the first time fans have had a say in choosing a competitor for the Dunk contest.
More than 500,000 total votes were cast on NBA.com/dunk to determine one of this year’s dunkers as part of Sprite’s “They Dunk. You Decide” campaign. Fernandez received 251,868 votes, beating out fellow rookies Russell Westbrook (147,279) of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Joe Alexander (114,963) of the Milwaukee Bucks. Fernandez, who is among rookie leaders in scoring, assists, steals, three-point field goal percentage and free throw
percentage, will compete against the Orlando Magic’s Dwight Howard, the reigning Sprite Slam Dunk champion, the Memphis Grizzlies’ Rudy Gay, who participated in last year’s contest, and the New York Knicks’ Nate Robinson, winner of the 2006 contest in Houston.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment