Blake Griffin made a huge splash at the 2011 NBA Dunk Contest when the explosive second-year player took home the championship trophy, thanks in large part to a gaudy dunk that involved the Clippers forward jumping over the hood of a Kia Optima, a sizable sedan. At the time, Griffin was criticized heavily for jumping over the hood of the car instead of its highest point–which is quite the unreasonable request–but as Blake pointed out during a recent podcast appearance, had he had it his way, he wouldn’t have been jumping over a Kia at all.
According to his claims during his time on Barstool Sports’ Pardon my Take, Griffin initially wanted to jump over a convertible, but the NBA was adamant about the car having to be the Kia. Considering the NBA’s relationship with Kia, one of the foremost and official sponsors and partners of the Association, it makes sense that prominently featuring another car brand during Griffin’s dunk, which has been viewed millions of times on YouTube, wasn’t in the league’s best interests.
I wanted to jump over a convertible, but I wasn’t allowed to. It had to be a Kia Optima. I wanted to have Baron Davis and some of my teammates roll out in a convertible, and then just toss it straight up and jump over the whole thing, instead of just the hood. I don’t know if you guys have stood next to a Kia Optima, but it’s a pretty tall vehicle, and there’s no way I was going to make it over the entire thing—over Baron Davis in the sunroof. So I opted for the hood, and then everyone was pissed that I jumped over the hood, like, ‘That was super easy,’ so it was just a lose-lose situation for me.
At the end of the day, everybody won. Despite the criticism Griffin took, that dunk is still one of the contest’s most iconic moments, and it coincided with Blake blossoming into a true NBA star, which makes it even more of a definitive moment. And, of course, neither the NBA nor Kia will argue with that type of seamless prominent product placement.
