The Los Angeles Lakers are a mess once again this season. Whether it is their 2-9 record or the way Byron Scott has been handling D'Angelo Russell there hasn't been much going right for the purple and gold. One little bright spot for the Lakers so far this year though, has been Larry Nance Jr. who is the son of former NBA player Larry Nance. Nance Jr. has worked his way into the Lakers rotation and says that he wants to compete in the Slam Dunk Contest at some point, according to Bill Oram of the Orange County Register.
It is still extremely early in this NBA season so players aren't getting picked for the dunk contest yet but Nance has his own reasons for really wanting to compete. Nance Jr.'s dad competed in the dunk contest back in 1984 and won it so junior wants to follow in his father's footsteps and do the same thing. Junior certainly has the athleticism to be able to do it as you can see by this dunk he had on Festus Ezeli of the Golden State Warriors in the preseason.
Dunk contests also requires a little bit of flare and it seems as though Nance has some of that too.
"He said that one day he's going to roll me out in a wheelchair, put me up under the basket and slam dunk on me. Now you know what kind of kid I have," said Nance Sr.
While athleticism and dunking the ball is a huge part of it players also need to engage the crowd and have some personality and that answer from his dad seems to show that he's got plenty of it. Nance Jr. also did the little Michael Jordan shrug after posterizing Ezeli so he's definitely got that part down.
The Lakers selected Nance Jr. with the 27th overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft and usually that late in the round you are hoping to get a player that can contribute in some way and Nance seems like he can be that so far. The 6 foot-9 power forward was not in the rotation at the beginning of the year but now he is playing a good amount of minutes off the bench and impressing the coaches. In seven games Nance is averaging 5.0 points and 4.1 rebounds in 17.7 minutes per game and the Lakers may have something in the 22 year old. In a few months we may be seeing him on a much brighter stage trying to match his dad by bringing the Slam Dunk Championship trophy back into the Nance family.
