Jack Harlow and Sinqua Walls were on First Take Tuesday morning to promote their reboot of White Men Can’t Jump and the conversation surprisingly turned to Frédéric Weis.
During the segment, Walls told Stephen A. Smith and Molly Qerim that he geeked out over seeing Vince Carter at ESPN’s South Street Seaport Studios. Minutes later, Carter walked onto the First Take set and introduced himself to Walls and Harlow. After he was asked to recall his favorite dunk, Carter humbly struggled to answer the question before acknowledging, “the most talked about is the Olympic dunk and the Alonzo Mourning dunk.”
“I wish you all brought the Lithuanian out too.” Harlow said. “That you dunked on.”
Carter famously dunked on Weis during the 2000 Olympics. Weis is from France, not Lithuania. “I need his name,” Harlow said as ESPN showed a picture of the dunk that was dubbed “le dunk de la mort” in France, which translates to “the dunk of death.”
After Carter said “Frédéric Weis,” Walls responded with “That’s good that you know his name, bro,” as if most basketball fans don’t similarly know his name. All the while, Stephen A. Smith was on camera looking like he couldn’t be more disinterested in the conversation that was now dominating First Take. But Harlow and Walls clearly weren’t ready for the next story Carter was about to tell.
Jack Harlow and Sinqua Walls weren’t ready for Vince Carter to talk about Frédéric Weis pic.twitter.com/8aPTjEwYru
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 16, 2023
“It’s an interesting story,” Carter said of Weis. “If you get a chance to look up Frédéric Weis’s story about the troubles he went through over that dunk. He tried to commit suicide twice over that and blackballed out of France over this. He was working in a bodega for a long time just because he couldn’t get a job. I’m glad he’s doing well now, he’s actually in the media doing stuff. Shout out to Frédéric Weis, but it was a rough road for him.”
“And on the court,” Walls joked, attempting to lighten the mood.
“Way to suck the air out of the room,” Harlow told Carter as Smith continued to seem displeased with the conversation, giving the camera a blank stare.
The dunk came one year after the Knicks passed on Ron Artest to draft Weis as the heir apparent to Patrick Ewing. But Weis never signed with the Knicks and NBA fans relished the opportunity to mock him after he was posterized by Carter. For Carter, the dunk over Weis at the 2000 Olympics was still a defining moment in his own basketball career. It would be easy for Carter to boast about the incredible athletic feat, but it was cool to see him offer some compassion amid the jokes, and it’s nice to hear Weis is doing well as a basketball analyst in France.
