European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 19, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Fit in it n my id m no or leap by Scott Ostler los Angeles times tand underneath a basketball hoop a regulation i 10-footer. Look up. Lift up an Arm and hop Lance or twice to get a feel for How far away the rim is. Now imagine yourself crouching and springing up High until you can reach into the air far above the rim. That s the outer space we re dealing with today the sky above the hoop the rare air inhabited by a select group the legendary leapers. If you be got a a Cjiodi imagination imagine yourself wearing a baseball Cap and leaping so High arms at your Side that you flick your head sideways and Dunk your Cap. Believe it or not it s been done. The players who Fly through thin air Are not simply re Remberd by hop fans they Are enshrined in a mythical museum f leap. They Are not necessarily great basketball players but their ability to jump has made them objects of profound respect. I called David Skywalker Thompson who now works in the Charlotte hornets front office and the receptionist said Jive Only seen two players who did things that i watched and i did t believe David and Michael Jordan. Trie Only other thing in life i could t comprehend was ibo King at the Moon and knowing there were men walking on  the greatest nicknames in basketball Are reserved for those who attain the greatest Altitude Skywalker helicopter Eleva Cir Clyde the Glide air Jordan the Hawk Rodan log o Joe honeycomb Sidecar the big dipper the Humah highlight film sky King Kangaroo kid. There Are professional or. A or. Funkenstein and or. Jam and there Are Blu bloods sir Samalot sir slam and the Prince of midair. These men have and Clyde the Glide Drexler. Close to the sure reaper class Kupchak says Are Charles Barkley Larry Nance Orlando Woolridge Roy Hinson Tom chanbers and Akeem Olajuwon. One explanation for the reverence accorded the big jumpers is offer Ecol by psychologist sportscaster Bob Costas who onco did play by play for the spirit of St. Louis a team in tie now defunct american basketball association the e every game was a Jam Boree. People think mistakenly in most cases that they could hit a baseball Costas says. They think they could track Down what the announcer Calls a routine Fly Ball. They could to of course because those things Are so much harder Tian they look. But with a leaper everybody instantly knows they could t do it that Only the tiniest fraction of humans can jump that  last season there were 5,757 Aba dunks by 246 players. The singe game High was eight by Drexler against the lakers. The most frequent fliers eight players dunked in triple figures bar