Vince Carter jumped over a giant. The dunk itself was thunderous. People were confused. Lost. Excited. I stood in my apartment in Toronto hooting at the television. The whole world rejoiced together, except for America. It was on tape delay. No streams. No social media. No CNN news tickers telling us what we missed. Frederic Weis was mortified be the act. A smaller man just jumped clear over him. This same smaller man's groin was hurdling his face. It was a basketball coup d’état of the highest order.
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He parlayed that Olympic performance into the best season of his life. Carter led an upstart Toronto Raptors squad to the second round of the NBA Playoffs, one missed shot away from the semifinals. Carter went on for a lengthy, highlight-driven career, forever accented by Le Dunk De La Mort. One Frenchman and one American are forever linked by a moment in space. Vince went up, Weis went down, and the basketball globe would never be the same.
Weis’ life began to corkscrew out of control; no more all-star selections, Olympic medals, and the Knicks were no longer on the horizon. He wandered around European leagues a shell of his former self. Years of depression and alcoholism ensued. After a failed suicide attempt, he reunited with his former wife and their autistic child, cleaned himself up and found some semblance of hope. Vince Carter’s life bounced the opposite direction.
Watch the full dunk of death claymation