Who said you can't visit home?

Larry Nance, former NBA star turned drag racer, will return to his basketball roots this weekend at the NBA All-Star Gala in Phoenix as a judge for the popular Sprite Slam Dunk Contest.
 
Nance is no novice to the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest having won the first-ever Slam Dunk in Denver in 1984, defeating “Dr. J,” Julius Erving, in the final round. Now 25-years later, he returns to Phoenix, where he began his professional basketball career.
 
“I’m honored that the NBA thought enough of me to have me as judge,” said Nance. “The event has changed a lot since I won. The players are doing things with the ball that I never thought of doing and probably couldn’t do if I had thought of them. It’s going to be fun.”

Who said you can't visit home?

Larry Nance, former NBA star turned drag racer, will return to his basketball roots this weekend at the NBA All-Star Gala in Phoenix as a judge for the popular Sprite Slam Dunk Contest.
 
Nance is no novice to the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest having won the first-ever Slam Dunk in Denver in 1984, defeating “Dr. J,” Julius Erving, in the final round. Now 25-years later, he returns to Phoenix, where he began his professional basketball career.
 
“I’m honored that the NBA thought enough of me to have me as judge,” said Nance. “The event has changed a lot since I won. The players are doing things with the ball that I never thought of doing and probably couldn’t do if I had thought of them. It’s going to be fun.”
 
The Sprite Slam Dunk, which features last year’s winner Dwight Howard (Orlando Magic), Rudy Fernandez (Portland Trail Blazers), Nate Robinson (New York Knicks), and J.R. Smith (Denver Nuggets), will be held Saturday night, Feb. 14, at 8 p.m., and will be televised live on TNT. This and other special events are part of NBA All-Star 2009, which climaxes on Sunday with the 58th NBA All-Star game.
 
During his 13 years in the NBA – 6 and ½ years with the Phoenix Suns and 6 and ½ with the Cleveland Cavaliers – Nance became one of the most dominating power forwards in the game. A knee injury during the 1993-94 season had the 6-foot-10-inch Nance going another direction. He gave up the round ball for the horsepower associated with drag racing, leaving the NBA with a total of 15,687 points and 7,352 rebounds.
 
It was this need to be competitive that hooked Nance on drag racing. “Although basketball is a team sport, it was the one-on-one competition that got my adrenaline flowing. Nothing was better than being in the lane with Michael Jordan coming at you. It was just you and him, one-on-one,” reflected Nance.
 
“That’s the same thing that drew me to NHRA Drag Racing -- the one-on-one competition of Pro Stock. Going against WJ (Warren Johnson) or Greg Anderson, to me, is like going against Michael Jordan. I’d be out there right now if I could find the backing to go full time. But it’s hard finding sponsorship in these economic times.”