Mourning on Planet Lovetron

Darryl Dawkins (1957-2015)

• New York Times
• "Everybody was in awe [when he shattered the backboard]. Fans were running out grabbing the glass. People’s hands were bleeding. I felt like I was doing something no other human could do."

• Grantland
• "It wasn’t just the backboard-shattering dunks, although nobody yet has topped If You Ain’t Groovin’ Best Get Movin’, Chocolate Thunder Flyin’, Robinzine Cryin’, Teeth Shakin’, Glass Breakin’, Rump Roastin’, Bun Toastin’, Glass Still Flyin’, Wham Bam I Am Jam! as a nom de slam. (It’s the “Bun-Toastin’” that makes it art.) It wasn’t that Dawkins claimed to be an emissary from the planet Lovetron, although that was cool enough that it might have been something George Clinton thought up as part of the P-Funk road show. It wasn’t just calling himself Chocolate Thunder, although that was pretty damn nifty, too. It was that there was room for all of that in one smiling package that was Darryl Dawkins, and that there was room for Darryl Dawkins in the NBA — where the dunks are now sponsored by Gatorade and no buns are toasted anymore."