People won't let Fred Jones forget. Three or four times a week, someone walks into The Luxury Sneaker Exchange, the store he owns on Mass Avenue, and reminds him.
"Most of the time when I'm in there, customers come in and say, 'You're the guy who won the Slam Dunk Contest!' That's the first thing out of their mouth," Jones said.
Jones played seven seasons in the NBA, four of them for the Pacers, but the Slam Dunk Contest he won over All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles in 2004 is what resonates in the memory of most fans. That's fine with him. It happens to be fine with Glenn Robinson III as well.
Robinson, who won this year's contest in New Orleans, hopes fans remember him 13 years from now, when he's probably retired and looking for other ways to stay involved in basketball. Robinson, though has the advantage of having dunked in the age of social media, when it's much easier to develop a "brand" than it was in 2004.
"I didn't get what I was hoping to get out of it," Jones said.
Robinson and his agency are planning to get as much as they can out of it. Endorsement deals for shoes, headphones and a sports drink are in the works, along with "a couple more surprises" he says he's not at liberty to discuss, as well as some local charitable activities.
Robinson fully expected all this to happen, and in fact was motivated by it. He was a teammate of Minnesota's Zach LaVine when LaVine won the first of his two dunk titles in 2015, and saw first-hand the impact it had on LaVine's career, on and off the court.
"I knew if I won it there was a whole bunch of stuff that comes from it," Robinson said following the Pacers' workout at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on Saturday. "I love business and fashion; I'm just trying to get the best opportunities out of it."
Robinson's social media following skyrocketed after he, among other things, jumped over Paul George's head and nailed a reverse-slam on Feb. 18. Although he's a former second-round draft pick averaging 6.3 points for a small market team, he now has 84,700 Twitter followers. That's the first step in establishing brand awareness, an opportunity Jones never had in the dark ages of the internet.
Still, it has been nothing but a positive for Jones. It helps with his shoe store, and he expects it to help with his next business venture. Jones will be co-owner of a Shoot 360 franchise, the fourth in the country, scheduled to open in June at 80th and Georgetown Rd. The basketball training facility uses the latest technology to measure performance and track progress.
An athlete's branding and business opportunities are not the foremost concern of fans, or a player's employer. Jones and Robinson, however, agree that winning the dunk contest improved their performance in games.
"It gave me the drive to make them know me beyond my dunking," said Jones, who was in his second NBA season when he won the contest. "The first few games after the contest, I played with the utmost confidence."
"Winning something like that, it's big-time," Robinson said. "Not only are people knowing my name now, it definitely gives me a lot of confidence."
The impact, for both, shows in the numbers.
Before the All-Star break in 2004, Jones was averaging 4 points in 17.3 minutes while shooting 36 percent from the field and 24.5 percent from the 3-point line. After the break, he averaged 6.6 points while shooting 45 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from the 3-point line in 21.1 minutes.
Robinson averaged 6.2 points while hitting 46 percent of his field goals and 38 percent of his 3-pointers in 21.9 minutes per game before the break. Over the four games since then, he's averaged 7.3 points while hitting 12-of-18 field goals (67 percent) and 4-of-6 3-pointers (67 percent) in 15.8 minutes.
"Funny thing with Glenn, one night he'll show aggressiveness and take his shots and the next night he won't even look at the rim," Paul George said following the win over Memphis, the first game after the break. "It's a young player's mentality to defer. But as I've been telling him, you're two-three years into this league, it's time for you to come into your own and we need you to. Hopefully he'll be a lot more assertive this second half."
Robinson's teammates enjoy kidding him about his victory. If Robinson is within earshot of him, C.J. Miles will make a point of excitedly telling people, "Hey, I met the Slam Dunk champ today!"
But they also love the fact he won. The combination of his youth, demeanor and work ethic make Robinson one of the most popular team members, and his teammates openly root for him. But if they have any criticism, it's been his tendency to fade into the background, as George mentioned.
So far, winning the dunk contest has changed that.
"To go in front of a crowd like that on that national stage and do it when it's just you on the floor, you definitely gain some confidence from that," Miles said. "He's shown it a little bit. His chin's up a little higher.
"We always believed in him. You see the way we cheer for him, the way we talk about him. We've seen him work. He's a great dude. I don't want to call him a kid; he's a great guy. Definitely one of the favorite guys I've been around. He works hard. That's evident. He deserves everything he's getting."
Playing time is at a premium now for the Pacers, with every player on the roster healthy and available. That's why Robinson, who filled in when injuries sidelined starters Paul George and then Monta Ellis earlier in the season, has played fewer minutes since the break. But as long as his production remains high, he will play as much as game circumstances permit. It might be the 23 minutes, 51 seconds he played at Miami, or it might be the 9 minutes, 16 seconds he played at Houston, but he'll play.
That alone is a step forward from last season, when he played in just 45 games, and even earlier this season, when he was held out of a couple, and would have been held out of more if not for injuries.
"I see times we need to light a fire and I see times when he's been aggressive," coach Nate McMillan said. "We've kept him in rotation and he's contributing, defensively as well as offensively. There's things you can do even better, so we're pushing him to improve and grow at both ends of the floor. But he's earned the right to be out there."
Robinson has a long way to go to become the player he thinks he can be. Having won the dunk title, though, so far looks to be more of a boost than a distraction. Like Jones 13 years before him, the verticality of his self-esteem has risen.
"It can only help me," he said. "It's helping my confidence on and off the court. It's getting me to that next level. I just want to continue to get better every year. This is one step that can help me and will stick with me forever."
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