Should J.R. Smith take the last shot?

J.R. Smith - Keith Allison / Flickr

Although J.R. Smith made some highlight reel plays this season, his risky buzzer beaters have not always won games. With Smith’s inconsistent shooting, the New York Knicks have to decide who should have the ball in their hands near the end of the fourth quarter. If Smith can’t be trusted to take the last second shots in crucial moments, then should the Knicks put the ball in Carmelo Anthony’s hand once he gets back from his knee injury?

In the Knicks’ game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on March 7, Smith carried them without Anthony, by scoring 36 points with three steals and three rebounds. He shot 14-29 from the field with the majority of his misses occurring during the most crucial parts of the game. When it came down to the last minutes, Smith was an awful shooter, finishing the fourth quarter 2-9. “My jumper was pretty much good all night except for the fourth quarter and just didn’t go in,” Smith said in an interview with CBS. Games like these question Smith’s consistency and reliability to shoot the ball in the last minutes of the game.

Smith’s crazy shots make Knicks fans excited one moment and a few minutes later, he will frustrate them with his poor decisions. “One minute, he's a chucker who throws up three-point shots willy-nilly. The next minute he's either mixing up his game or slamming home a key dunk,” said Josh Benjamin of Bleacher Report.

In the most important part of the games Smith stepped up to take the shots for the Knicks and failed them. He should not be trusted with the ball in the last minute. With Anthony coming back from injury, the ball should be in his hands during crunch time. As the Knicks leading scorer he should take the clutch shots instead of Smith.

Contributed by Nasif Chowdhury

Nate Robinson poisons the competition in the 2009 Sprite Slam Dunk Contest

Nate Robinson / Keith Allison

Nate Robinson, also known as “Nate the Great”, was the victor in the 2009 Sprite Slam Dunk Contest, which took place in Phoenix, Arizona. The reason he is called “Nate the Great” is because of his ability to wow the crowd. Standing at merely 5’9” and weighing 180 pounds, Nate impresses with his 43.5" vertical leap. The Seattle, Washington native has won multiple Slam Dunk Contests, but his most memorable one is by far this one because he dunked over Dwight Howard, who stands at a towering 6’11” and weighing in at 265 pounds.

Robinson was able to beat J. R. Smith and Rudy Fernández, in addition to the aforementioned Dwight Howard.

The interesting thing about this contest is that Robinson arrived prepared in the final round of the contest. As soon as Dwight Howard changed into the Superman gimmick by dunking on a 12 foot hoop, Nate went out and changed into the New York Knicks’ green uniform used on Saint Patrick’s Day, in addition to a lime-green pro-shooter arm sleeve and neon-green Nike Foamposite Lite basketball shoes. The significance of all the green is that he was symbolizing Kryptonite, or in his case, “Kryptonate." Kryptonite is Superman’s only known weakness, implying that Nate was going to weaken Dwight Howard.

Robinson’s signature dunk was the one-handed slam in which he leaped over Howard and cleared him. Howard got the opportunity to follow up with the last dunk. His final dunk was one where he did a Michael Jordan move and jumped from the free-throw line. As impressive as that was for a man of Howard’s build, it was Robinson’s creativity and originality that helped him secure the victory over Howard.