Don't recognize the NBA dunk contest participants? One is from Minnesota.
There are no superstars competing in Saturday night's NBA dunk contest. In fact, one of the competitors isn't even in the NBA. But that shouldn't stop Minnesotans from tuning in because one of the four participants is Minneapolis native Jericho Sims.
Sims, a 6-foot-10 forward for the New York Knicks, will dunk against New Orleans' Trey Murphy III, Houston's Kenyon Martin Jr., and G League guard Max McClung, who is on a two-way contract with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Sims was a dominant high school player at Cristo Rey Jesuit in Minneapolis, where he was ranked as the No. 51 recruit in the country by Scout and No. 56 by Rivals. He averaged 25 points and 10 rebounds per game as a senior and finished as the all-time leading scorer at Cristo Rey Jesuit.
Sims' father, Charles Sims, played basketball at the University of Minnesota in the 1970s and one of his brothers, Dominique Sims, was a standout linebacker for the Gophers football team from 2000-04.
Sims was drafted 58th overall by the Knicks in 2021.
This season, Sims is playing about 16 minutes per game and averaging 3.7 points and 4,.9 rebounds while shooting 77.8% from the field.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.