Barangay Ginebra high-flying rookie Chris Ellis won the PBA Slam Dunk title as he performed with a Samboy Lim tribute slam dunk. Although he was favored to win the contest but not before a challenge from fellow Gin Kings teammate Elmer Espiritu.
Ellis won his first slam dunk crown during the Slam Dunk competition in the PBA All Star Weekend held at Digos, Davao del Sur. He was able to pay tribute to PBA Legend and Ginebra team manager Samboy Lim, whom he considered as his mentor.
In an exclusive interview with InterAKTV he was quoted as saying that “Samboy Lim is very influential to me. He keeps telling me that I need to get better every game, attack the rim more aggressively. I was able to watch some of the highlights of his game (from YouTube),” Ellis stated.
During his first dunk whom he named as the Skywalker, he was able to earn a total of 50 points from the judges. He scored his dominance by scoring another perfect 50. He then scored with 44 points only in the finals on his first jam, just one point below Espiritu’s first dunk in the final round.
Espiritu failed an ambitious alley oop attemp from Mark Barroca in the stands, allowing Ellis to come away with the tile after he successfully scored an amazing elbow-through-the-ring dunk.
