The Dunk That Destroyed A Player's NBA Career

[Music] does this look familiar yeah what you just saw is the greatest dunk of all time not only was it spectacular but it also ended a man's career how's going folks my name's andy and today we're gonna take a look at frederick weiss the seven foot two 260 pound center who was the victim of the greatest dunk of all time it was the 2000 summer olympics in sydney australia and just like in most years team usa was favored to blow out the competition once again during the preliminaries team usa was just coasting through the rounds they had a very strong team that featured some young stars who'd become the faces of the 2000s era of the nba and also some other older former stars to provide that veteran leadership the expectations this year weren't any different than the previous olympics as usa was the team to beat anyway in one of the preliminary rounds they were playing france the score was 69 54 and the atmosphere in the stadium was relatively calm as they were expecting another blowout but then that's when it happened in france it was called la dunc de la mor which translates to the dunk of death everyone on the court everyone in the stadium did not believe what they just saw it didn't even make sense and there was no buildup to this dunk at all it happened just like that and it took several minutes for everyone to fully understand the impact of what just happened even carter himself did not realize what he did was that ridiculous until he saw the replay after team usa won the game a lot of reporters asked weiss about the dunk and what he saw from his perspective weiss stated i knew he could jump but i did not know he could jump over me everybody will know my face now or my jersey number at least it's going to be on a poster for sure then he would follow that up by saying it was great but at the end of the day it was just two points so what happened to frederick weiss after the dunk of death well team usa would go on to defeat france again in the gold medal game as france got silver but before that weiss was actually the 15th overall pick in the 1999 nba draft yeah you heard that right he was selected by the new york knicks a year before the dunk happened but he didn't play in the nba yet and it turns out he would never play a single nba game ever that's pretty crazy the knicks used their 15th overall pick to draft somebody who would never even play in the league i guess considering it's the knicks it's not so surprising it further shows their string of bad luck and bad draft picks around this time what's even funnier is that ron artest was in the same draft and he was selected at number 16 one spot after weiss knicks fans were obviously upset when the team selected weiss because not only did nobody know who he was at the time but artest also grew up in queens in new york city and also played college ball at st john's he was a new york city basketball icon a local basketball star and reasonably knicks fans were really upset the knicks did not take him as for weiss from 1997 to 2000 he was an all-star in the french league but unfortunately after that he started to slow down because of injuries and health issues coincidentally this started to happen after the dunk so everyone thinks it's the reason his career went downhill but it was really a multitude of reasons mainly due to knee and back problems and personal issues off the court which i'll talk about later weiss was a huge guy and those type of injuries are pretty common for big men at the same time though he said it himself that the dunk emotionally and mentally affected his play and because of all the news coverage on the dunk his face was everywhere it was always on his mind that's something that weiss will never be able to escape he spent the next 10 years from 2000 to 2010 bouncing around different teams in the euro league playing for teams in france in greece and spain the multiple knee and back problems he suffered ultimately caused him to retire from professional basketball in 2011 at the young age of 33. he finished his basketball career playing in zero nba games but let's rewind a bit and take a more detailed look at everything that happened to him according to weiss he was supposed to join the knicks in the early 2000s but a bunch of problems outside of his control started to happen he said quote i was unlucky with the nba i had back surgery after i went to the next summer league it was killing me and after that my agent went to jail life got complicated and if something doesn't feel right you don't have to do it it's life i moved on to something else remember knicks fans absolutely despised this selection and it kinda lingered over to weiss himself he wasn't very popular despite weiss being super excited to go to the us and play for the knicks one of the most popular teams in the entire world he didn't have a great reception upon arriving to the knicks summer league in 1999 and meeting his coach jeff van gundy he felt like nobody wanted him there weiss described van gundy as being cold to him and showed very little interest in him even though he was the team's first round pick on the other hand van gundy stated that he doesn't remember much about weiss but he did say that he was an incredibly nice and sweet guy after an unspectacular showing at the summer league where weiss barely got any playing time he never returned to the team although there are some conflicting reports over what happened but according to weiss he said that the knicks just never contacted him again and that was that so both sides moved on and he continued to play in europe it was kind of weird i mean he was the 15th pick it's not like he was a late second rounder or anything you expect the knicks to at least try to develop him and give him the chance to see what he can do that never happened though in the 1999 summer league they barely even gave him any playing time and he wasn't even invited back to the summer league for the following season i guess he must have looked very bad when he did play combine that with his injuries and being very unpopular in the new york media yeah it did not work out his experiences with the knicks were so bad that it made him question whether or not he should continue to play basketball being treated like that hurt his confidence a lot after realizing his nba career was not going to happen his life in general also started to go downhill shortly after in 2002 weiss found out that one of his children had autism and he did not respond well to that despite never being a heavy drinker before he started going out a lot and sometimes even stayed until 5am drinking he became very moody and erratic as a result his basketball skills declined and he was sluggish and uninterested in playing eventually him and his wife would be separated in 2004 because it was getting hard to deal with him at home life was just going terribly for weiss keep in mind he had a ton of problems with his body too his back and knees were in terrible condition and there were days when he could barely walk or get out of bed and the worst was yet to come in 2008 weiss hit rock bottom he didn't want to deal with everything anymore he could not handle it and just wanted everything to end so he attempted to commit suicide by consuming a bunch of sleeping pills at once fortunately he survived about 10 hours later he woke up feeling relief that a suicide attempt has failed he said it was the luckiest i've been in my life afterwards weiss slowly recovered and tried to get back on his feet and after retiring in 2011 he's been doing a lot better nowadays he still struggles from depression but he seems content with his life him and his wife salia worked out their differences and they own and operate a tobacco store in france and is also a commentator for french basketball games according to seliya there are days when weiss still doesn't feel well there are so many mornings when she finds weiss lying in bed grim-faced and there are still so many times too when weiss has mood swings he's still trying to find ways to make himself happy again and the process has been slower than expected but he's getting there in recent years there was actually a time a few years ago when weiss was visiting new york city again and at the airport when an officer was checking his passport he actually recognized him the officer asked aren't you the guy the knicks drafted to which weiss responded no no that's my cousin that sums up the story of frederick weiss he's on the opposite end of one of the most famous or should i say infamous highlights in the history of basketball but not many people really know who he is or what happened to him after that it turns out it didn't go so well but that's mainly due to a bunch of other factors too i think there's a bunch of people who really do believe that dunk basically ended his career and destroyed him mentally as he never recovered after that while he admitted it did have an impact and hurt his confidence there were a lot of other things going on too but yeah that's pretty much it i thought i'd make a video about him because he has a pretty interesting story anyway thank you all so much for watching i hope you all enjoyed the video let me know your thoughts about this dunk do you really think that this is the greatest dunk of all time as always i'll see you next time peace [Music] bye

Channel: Andy Hoops

Views: 104,530

Keywords: nba basketball, nba history, nba trivia, nba story, nba analysis, nba mystery, best nba youtuber, andy hoops, nba stories, greatest nba, vince carter, frederic weis, vince carter dunked on, dunk of death, dunk de la mort, nba greatest dunks, vince carter best dunks, nba greatest dunkers ever, nba best dunks all time, 2000 nba olympics, sydney australia, 2000 sydney olympics, new york knicks, ron artest, frederic weis knicks, vince carter jumps over, french player

Id: fXJIizfCLCw

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 18 2021