Unsurprisingly, the skills that have made Jones a monster to cover in the NFL made him a similarly problematic player on the hardcourt. Just ask DeMarcus Cousins.
Cousins — playing Andre Drummond in the ‘NBA2K’ Tournament on Monday — was asked to relay the craziest dunk-on he’d ever witnessed. Instead of listing himself or several other NBA superstars, he went with a put-back dunk by Jones. The crazy part? It occured while he and Jones were still in high school (and, no, Cousins wasn’t on the receiving end of it).
“That was by far the craziest dunk,” Cousins said. “It was sick.”
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The dunk — which occurred in a meeting between Jones’ Foley team and Cousins’ LeFlore Magnet High School — was apparently so outrageous that LeFlore students stormed the court, forcing officials to pause the game to could restore order. From a 2017 Bleacher Report feature:
The audio file of the dunk matches everything Cousins said about it:
Neither (play-by play announcer Clark Watson) nor (Foley director of football operations Todd Stewart) remembers Jones’ launching point.
They only saw him land.
“I don’t know where the heck he came from,” Stewart says. “He came from outer space. It was unbelievable. … Julio was like Superman. You expected to see a big ‘S’ on his shirt.”
Turns out a 6-3, 220-pound all-world athlete with 38 1/2-inch vertical can be good at any sport they want. Who knew?
