Will we see the first dunk by a Korean women’s basketball player this year?
Park Ji-soo (26-193 cm), who attempted a dunk at the 2023-2024 Women’s Professional Basketball All-Star Game held at Asan Yi Sunshin Gymnasium in Chungcheongnam-do on July 7, announced that she will attempt to dunk in an official game.
After the game, Park said, “I will try to dunk this season by improving my jumping power.”
Park attempted a dunk during the game, but it only came down just short of the rim.
The only other player to successfully dunk in the Korean Women’s Professional Basketball League was Maria Stepanova (203 cm) of Kookmin Bank on June 24, 2006. Stepanova pulled off a two-handed dunk, but it only came down with a slight touch of the rim.
Even in the WNBA, dunks are few and far between.
They are taller and more athletic than Korean players, but they are also more likely to fail and risk injury.
In 1984, West Virginia University center Georgianne Wells (201 cm) became the first female dunker in the United States, and after the inauguration of the Women’s Professional Basketball League, Lisa Leslie (196 cm) of the Los Angeles Sparks became the first to dunk in 2002. 카지노사이트777
Since then, Michelle Snow (196 centimeters), Candace Parker (193 centimeters), and Sylvia Powells (198 centimeters) have all recorded dunks, including 6-foot-6 Brittney Griner, who set a record with two dunks in her WNBA debut in 2013.
The impact of dunking in Korean women’s basketball is long-lasting
. When the Korean Women’s Basketball League (WKBL) published “100 Years of Korean Women’s Basketball” in 2010, then-president Kim Won-gil titled the book “96 Years of Dunking” to honor the event.
Kim even encouraged female players to dunk by creating a local rule that allowed dunks to count as three points.
At the time, the dunking rule, which was teasingly referred to as the “Kim Jong-il rule,” has since been reverted to two points.
Since then, many foreign female players have been expected to dunk, but the No. 2 dunker has yet to emerge 18 years later.
Ha Eun-ju, the tallest player in the history of Korean women’s basketball and a full 10 centimeters taller than Park Ji-soo at 203 centimeters, never even attempted a dunk during her career.
When Park touches the rim, she has to jump at least 5 to 10 centimeters to dunk.
Park has a good jump for her height.
However, since suffering an ankle injury while traveling to international competitions as a youth representative in her third year of middle school, she has refrained from jumping high for fear of injury.
Park attempted a dunk during the All-Star Game in the 2017-2018 season, but it came up just short of the rim.
Park’s father, former national center Park Sang-kwan, who watched the game, said, “Jisoo jumps a lot for a long center, but to dunk, she needs to build up her ankle, calf, waist, and back muscles through systematic weight training.”
