WASHINGTON, D.C. — The first dunk he did was a backward, off-the-backboard jam job.
He was in P.E. class at the time — in seventh grade, when some kids have trouble walking backward, let alone dunking.
No wonder DeShawn Stevenson is convinced he will walk away a winner at tonight's NBA All-Star Saturday activities at the MCI Center. He's been doing this dunking stuff for a while now, and it really does not faze the 19-year-old rookie that his competition this time consists of all pros.
"Fortunately I was dunking at a young age — seventh grade — so I've been practicing for a long time," he said. "That's why it's really not 'a big deal' to me.
"I'm not worried about it," added Stevenson, last season's McDonald's All-American High School All-Star Game dunk champ. "I'm just going to go out there, have fun and try to win it."
If he does, Stevenson will win $25,000 — cash he said will go to his mother, Genice, who endured countless nightly jam contests on the hoop outside their home in the Fresno, Calif., area.
Every time there was one, her little DeShawn — now a 6-foot-5 NBA shooting guard — won. The reason, he said, is simple: "I've got a lot of stuff." Just listen to the array: "Windmills . . . off the glass . . . between the legs . . . jumping over somebody."
It's "stuff" that, to Stevenson, comes naturally — just like talking about past NBA dunk champs. The kid discusses the time 5-foot-7 Spud Webb won the All-Star Weekend contest as if it were yesterday. In truth, the year was 1986 — and Stevenson wasn't yet 5 years old.
If you think DeShawn's busted, though, you're dead wrong.
He knows precisely what Webb did with his dunks, even if he was too young, and too short, to reach the shower-head at the time. Ditto for everyone from Dominique Wilkins to Michael Jordan, other in-the-'80s winners.
"I seen film," he said.
Stevenson, in fact, has an extensive collection of videotapes featuring past dunk stars doing their thing, in both contests and games. The tapes are back home in Fresno, but what is on them is etched in his mind.
"When you're little kids, you just go out there and do the same things they did," said Stevenson, who is "just glad they picked me."
Phone calls to the NBA offices by veteran teammates Karl Malone and Bryon Russell helped that process along.
And now he is ready to win.
Stevenson hasn't been willing to say precisely what he will do tonight, when his competition includes Vancouver's Stromile Swift, Indiana's Jonathan Bender, Charlotte's Baron Davis, Seattle's Desmond Mason and Corey Maggette of the Los Angeles Clippers — but not defending champ Vince Carter, whose jumper's knee will keep him from dunking but not from representing the Toronto Raptors in the All-Star Game itself, or Los Angeles Lakers star and 1997 winner Kobe Bryant, who is also hurt but decided to play Sunday only.
Suffice it to say, however, that Stevenson knows what it will take to win.
"I think it's a feel thing. When I do stuff, I'm like a crowd-pleaser," he said. "Sitting back and watching other people dunk, I know what people like. They like power, and new stuff, so when I go out there I'll just try to do something new you've never seen before. And hard.
"You've just got to think of crazy stuff," Stevenson added Friday. "I've got stuff people have never seen before."
Perhaps that is because he's been doing it as long as he has.
"I worked on it my ninth- and 10th-grade years," he said. "I used to always dunk, and work on dunks, (then). But after a while I'd just start doing it in a game, and I'd see new stuff on TV, and I'd go out there and try it once, and it would end up working."
Now, though, Stevenson says he will entertain only with original material.
"I'm going to use my own stuff," he said. "I ain't going to copy nobody."
E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com