Duke Basketball: Zion Williamson tornado destroys Grant Hill alley-oop

No other dunk from a Duke basketball player has ever created a storm on social media like Zion Williamson’s 360; of course, at the time of the dunk that was once the fans’ favorite, ‘social media’ just meant a chatty newsroom.

According to Wonderopolis.com, only about five percent of tornadoes that take place in the northern hemisphere rotate clockwise. But that stat probably doesn’t take into account the one on Saturday night from Duke basketball freshman Zion Williamson.

The viral 360 — Williamson is ambidextrous, yet primarily a lefty on the basketball court, meaning his natural motion for such a dunk is clockwise — has surprisingly not yet broken the internet. But it did its best.

Unfortunately, though, that one play overshadowed his amazing all-around game — yet pretty much just business as usual for the 6-foot-7, 285-pounder who possesses at least a 45-inch vertical leap and an unmatched motor on both ends of the floor.

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Everyone should take yet another moment to appreciate the entirety of Williamson’s performance — after all, his entire time in a Duke basketball jersey is about a third of the way complete — from the No. 1 Blue Devils’ 87-68 home win against Clemson:

OK, now back to that one play.

The Duke basketball program’s official Twitter account put out a poll on Monday night asking fans to vote on their all-time favorite dunk from a Blue Devil.

Four choices: Zion’s 360, Jayson Tatum’s 2017 poster-worthy flush over UNC’s Kennedy Meeks in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Dahntay Jones’ 2003 poster-worthy flush over Nick VanderLaan at Virginia, and Grant Hill’s alley-oop dunk off a Bobby Hurley lob during the 1991 title game in Indianapolis.

At the time of this article’s publishing, the twister from Zion was well on its way to beating out the other three choices (48 percent had voted for Zion, 21 percent for Tatum, 19 percent for Hill, and 12 percent for Jones).

Due to the fact that at the time of the Hill dunk I was a 9-year-old Duke fanatic who did not yet know the utter joy that comes from watching “One Shining Moment” after Blue Devils cut down nets, I have a tough time agreeing with the majority, which likely consists of mostly Millenials.

That Hurley-to-Hill moment nearly tops the list of my most cherished childhood memories, period. It’s just difficult to take it down from the pedestal it has been on inside my memory bank of Duke dunks ever since it happened 28 years ago.

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But then I take another look at all four choices and realize — with no offense to Hill, Tatum, or Jones — that Williamson makes the others seem like mere grasshoppers.

In other words, my heart still sides with Hill’s, but my eyes and brain have to side with Zion’s.

Maybe it’s just because we, as fans, are all caught up in the hype of the moment. Maybe we will all come back to earth and decide that Hill’s dunk should remain as the most cherished in the glorious history of Duke basketball.

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Most cherished? Maybe. Most impressive? Nope, that definitely now belongs to Zion’s 360 — it looked, for a moment, like he may never return back to earth at all after he left his feet.

And what’s really scary is that by the time Zion wraps up his days as a Blue Devil — hopefully not until he shakes a couple rims in Minneapolis on April 8 — all past Blue Devil dunks may no longer even smell the program’s top 10.

Williamson’s next chance to go viral and put past Duke dunkers to shame comes when the 12-1 Blue Devils play at 7-6 Wake Forest on Tuesday at 7 p.m. (on ESPN).