Apparently Steve Novak was tapped to do the dunk contest during linsanity but he couldn’t participate because he can’t dunk.
Steve Novak wasn't sure what to do when he got the call. It was early 2012, near the height of Linsanity in New York City, and his agent got word that the NBA wanted him to participate in the dunk contest. Jeremy Lin was sleeping on teammate Landry Fields’s couch at the time, and, as Novak remembers it, the plan was for Fields to dunk over a futon-bound Lin. When Fields had to withdraw because of injury, JR Smith was tapped to take over. When Smith pulled out because of a bum ankle, the offer went to the next player on the list.
The NBA was eager to capitalize on the excitement surrounding Linsanity, and adding Novak, who had never dunked in five seasons as a professional, was just another wrinkle to the theatrics. For a role player with a few million in career earnings, the cash incentive ($20,000 just for participating) wasn’t insignificant, and the potential spotlight could have done wonders for the Knicks forward. He had been lobbying the league to let him join the three-point shootout, but they preferred Kevin Durant. At 6' 10", no player as tall as Novak has appeared in as many games without dunking. And he wasn’t about to risk becoming a meme at All-Star weekend.
Novak is quick to set the record straight: He can dunk. Or at least he could at one point. There’s proof somewhere on the internet if you know where to look: snippets of flashier jams from college and routine slams from practice and in pregame. He even remembers his first in-game dunk. He was in the eighth grade, towering over his fellow tweens at a whopping 6' 5". After seeing Novak throw it down in practice, a coach approached him with an incentive. If the big friendly giant could dunk in a game, he’d be rewarded with a $20 gift card to a local ice cream shop. “If I didn’t have motivation before,” Novak remembers, “I’m like, ‘This has got to happen.’ "
The dunk was a one-handed affair off a steal on the fast break. In his words, it was vicious. What he couldn’t have known then was that it’d be one of his last.
Novak recalls two real chances to log his first NBA dunk. The first came early in his career with the Clippers, when he “came up with a flat tire” and resorted to a finger roll. The other occurred when he played for the Knicks against the Bucks and was alone on the fast break. He steeled himself and decided this was his moment.
“I just took a little too much time getting down to the rim, and Larry Sanders, who was on the Bucks at the time, was trailing me like a bat out of hell,” Novak says. “And it kind of spooked me, so I rushed it, and, instead of getting my steps right, I just sort of finger-rolled that one, too.”
At first, coaches couldn’t unlock him. He was a towering forward who wasn’t much for banging in the paint and wasn’t likely to ever become a glass eater. It wasn’t until Rick Adelman was hired to lead the Rockets before Novak’s second season that things started to click. Later, when he played for Mike D’Antoni in New York, his skills as a shooter became a feature of the Knicks’ offense.
“He would say to me, ‘Hey, Steve, I know the guy you’re guarding might be able to score on you. I’m fine with that. I’m not O.K. if he scores more than you,’ ” Novak says. “And it’s like, Whoa. That makes so much sense to me. If I make three, and he makes two, we’re good out here.”
https://www.si.com/nba/2021/02/22/nba-non-dunkers-patty-mills-tj-mcconnell-steve-novak-daily-cover
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