The guy has left skin and body parts at most every arena in the NBA just from ordinary game situations.
"Every arena, really," teammate Raymond Felton corrects.
OK. Every arena.
And now Gerald Wallace is going to be in the Slam Dunk contest at All-Star weekend, where the idea is to push the bounds of acrobatics?
This is good news for two groups: the Bobcats, who can use the national exposure of the showcase event, and any orthopedic surgeon in Dallas looking to pick up extra work.
Of course, this is also potentially bad news for the Bobcats, who may enter the All-Star break on pace for the first playoff berth in franchise history and can hardly afford to lose their starting small forward because gravity intruded again. They need him in the lineup, not traction.
Wallace's landings can deploy airbags. That much has been determined in 8 ½ seasons in which he has gone from the Kings' relatively unknown No. 25 pick in 2001 to Eastern Conference All-Star in 2010 -- not just an All-Star dunker. He knows about his sometimes crash landings, teammates joke about it, and Charlotte and Sacramento have the insurance forms to prove it.
In various arenas in various years, in going from a young player who tried to get by on elite athleticism to an older one developing a rounded game that includes a decent 37.4 percent from behind the arc, Wallace has tried to defy aerodynamics while charging to the rim, skying for a rebound or elevating for a block. Usually he lands fine. Too often he doesn't.
People crash. Knievel at Caesars Palace. Leno at 10 p.m.
It's just that Wallace seems to be daring fate with this one.
"Since I've been with him, and I've been with him since the beginning, I've seen a lot of stuff," Felton said of Wallace's time in Charlotte. "I've seen him hit his head, get his shoulder knocked out of place. I've seen some of everything. He can definitely crash."
"I'm not telling him anything," coach Larry Brown said. "But I was hoping he'd make the All-Star team and not participate [in the dunk]. I don't want him to change. He can't change the way he is and how he plays."
Wallace said he is committed to staying in the dunk contest at American Airlines Center despite being a reserve at the main event the next day at Cowboys Stadium. He just doesn't sound as if he belongs in the Saturday spectacle, a young man's event.
Once upon a time, absolutely. Athletic now, he was a marvel with a jet pack upon entering the league and the runner-up to Jason Richardson in the 2002 dunkfest in Philadelphia. Come 2010, though, Wallace is 27 and leading the league in minutes per game.
That's a lot of miles for someone who still has about a half-season to play, and he's feeling it.
"I'm more conservative about myself now," he said. "I try to stay healthy for my team."
No one knows better than he does that it doesn't alwasy work that way.
"Once at home, when I went for a dunk, me and Danny Granger collided in the air," Wallace said, going down the play list of his greatest hits. "And then I had a collision in mid-air with Andrew Bynum last year that actually broke some ribs and collapsed one of my lungs. Those are two of the most memorable.
"Most of the guys here pretty much know what to expect. I think they get mad because sometimes I do it when it's not necessary. They're just trying to keep me from getting hurt because of the run we have."
And that doesn't even count life without any takeoff. A few years ago, he bent over the ball, went head first into Mikki Moore's midsection and suffered a concussion. Concussions, in fact, became so prevalent that Wallace began to wear a mouth piece.
He won't actually get mangled in a dunking exhibition -- or at least probably not -- but it is amazing irony. Wallace, of all people, in an event that often requires a little crazy when he has never needed encouragement to risk life and limb.
All Charlotte will be rooting him on, watching with fingers over eyes. That's his daredevil life.
"Yeah," Wallace agreed. "Gotta keep going, though. Gotta keep going."
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