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'Nique: The High-Flying, Electrifying Career of Dominique Wilkins
Dominique Wilkins is now a member of the NBA's 75th Anniversary Team. He's a 9x All-Star, a 7x All-NBA team member, 2x dunk champion, NBA scoring champion, a Hall of Famer and a bona fide 80s and early 90s icon. He duked it out with Michael Jordan, dueled with Larry Bird and has a statue outside of the Hawks' arena in Atlanta...and yet, no biography has properly chronicled the electric, exhilarating career of Dominique Wilkins...until now!From the author of Hoops Heist endorsed by Kevin Durant and Gary Payton, The Athlete, endorsed by Tony Dungy and Jeff Van Gundy, and 1996: A Biography, endorsed by Jeff Pearlman and Steve Rushin, comes ' The High-Flying, Electrifying Career of Dominique Wilkins.If Dominique Wilkins played today he’d have a signature shoe and his own logo. His in-game dunks would trend on Twitter nightly. He’d be unstoppable in 2K. He’d be top five in jersey sales. He was like prime Blake Griffin AND Kevin Durant.
That’s how dominant 'Nique was.
Back in his peak in the 1980s and early 90s he’d have three or four "did you see that!?!?!?" dunks and about thirty points every single night.
But he was more than the highlights and the stats. He had sponsorships with Reebok and Gatorade and Minute Maid. In short, he was a superstar.
Lunch room arguments would break out about who was a better dunker.
‘Nique or Jordan?
Jordan or ‘Nique?
Was a windmill swung down to your ankles harder than a foul line dunk?
Was it more explosive to jump off two feet or one?
Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins were like the McDonald’s and Burger King of our dunking universe for a solid decade…and yet we seem to have slowly and collectively begun to only remember the Jordan half of the equation.
When I started researching this project I got in touch with Spud Webb, Wilkins’ dunking rival and longtime Hawks teammate and friend, to get his take on Dominique’s legacy and he summed it up best.
“It’s amazing that people act like they’ve never seen anyone in the 80s and 90s play other than MJ,” he said. “People need to bring up Dominique. Dominique was an all-time scorer. He never got his credit.”
Exactly!
I’ve wanted to write about the Human Highlight Film’s highlights from the first time I saw his highlights on film. I’ve even had that sentence stowed away in a notebook for about eight years. And I’m damn glad to finally use it.
From ‘Nique’s legendary high school games to his bulldozing of the SEC at Georgia to his FIVE dunk contests to his duels with Jordan and Larry Bird and even his late-career EuroLeague Championship and Final Four MVP and beyond, you will love this digital, illustrated biography of the electric, incomparable Dominique Wilkins.
I’ve dug into the newspaper archives, watched all the games, interviewed NBA players and picked the brains of the best NBA historians and journalists around to make this the definitive short biography on the Human Highlight Film.
And to make it even better, I’m collaborating with the most talented NBA artist working today, Michael Farhat (AKA Art Mobb). Farhat is an absolute creative genius. He illustrated/designed the incredible cover and is creating original art work for each chapter. It’s awesome.
That’s how dominant 'Nique was.
Back in his peak in the 1980s and early 90s he’d have three or four "did you see that!?!?!?" dunks and about thirty points every single night.
But he was more than the highlights and the stats. He had sponsorships with Reebok and Gatorade and Minute Maid. In short, he was a superstar.
Lunch room arguments would break out about who was a better dunker.
‘Nique or Jordan?
Jordan or ‘Nique?
Was a windmill swung down to your ankles harder than a foul line dunk?
Was it more explosive to jump off two feet or one?
Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins were like the McDonald’s and Burger King of our dunking universe for a solid decade…and yet we seem to have slowly and collectively begun to only remember the Jordan half of the equation.
When I started researching this project I got in touch with Spud Webb, Wilkins’ dunking rival and longtime Hawks teammate and friend, to get his take on Dominique’s legacy and he summed it up best.
“It’s amazing that people act like they’ve never seen anyone in the 80s and 90s play other than MJ,” he said. “People need to bring up Dominique. Dominique was an all-time scorer. He never got his credit.”
Exactly!
I’ve wanted to write about the Human Highlight Film’s highlights from the first time I saw his highlights on film. I’ve even had that sentence stowed away in a notebook for about eight years. And I’m damn glad to finally use it.
From ‘Nique’s legendary high school games to his bulldozing of the SEC at Georgia to his FIVE dunk contests to his duels with Jordan and Larry Bird and even his late-career EuroLeague Championship and Final Four MVP and beyond, you will love this digital, illustrated biography of the electric, incomparable Dominique Wilkins.
I’ve dug into the newspaper archives, watched all the games, interviewed NBA players and picked the brains of the best NBA historians and journalists around to make this the definitive short biography on the Human Highlight Film.
And to make it even better, I’m collaborating with the most talented NBA artist working today, Michael Farhat (AKA Art Mobb). Farhat is an absolute creative genius. He illustrated/designed the incredible cover and is creating original art work for each chapter. It’s awesome.
110 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 14, 2021
About the author
Jon Finkel
38 books18 followersJon Finkel is the award-winning author of 1996: A Biography, Hoops Heist, The Life of Dad, Jocks In Chief, The Athlete, Heart Over Height, “Mean” Joe Greene and more. His books have been endorsed by everyone from Mark Cuban and Tony Dungy to Spike Lee, Kevin Durant and Chef Robert Irvine.
He has written for GQ, Men’s Health, Yahoo! Sports, The New York Times and has appeared on CBS: This Morning, Good Morning Texas, and hundreds of radio shows, podcasts and streams. Jon was recently profiled in The New Yorker about the awesome community he’s built around his Books & Biceps newsletter. They describe him as “a gym rat’s Reese Witherspoon”.
His upcoming biography, Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage, comes out Spring 2024.
He has written for GQ, Men’s Health, Yahoo! Sports, The New York Times and has appeared on CBS: This Morning, Good Morning Texas, and hundreds of radio shows, podcasts and streams. Jon was recently profiled in The New Yorker about the awesome community he’s built around his Books & Biceps newsletter. They describe him as “a gym rat’s Reese Witherspoon”.
His upcoming biography, Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage, comes out Spring 2024.
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