TWO YEARS.
TWO STRAIGHT RED BULL KING
OF THE ROCK CHAMPIONSHIPS.
You can now safely say that streetball legend Hugh "Baby Shaq" Jones owns this
event. With Rajon Rondo looking on, Baby Shaq ran through the 64-player field at
Alcatraz Island this past Spetember. With all of the action taking place in the famous,
bone-chilling yard at Alcatraz, where no basketball has been played since the inmates
left "The Rock" over 50 years ago, the best one-on-one tournament in the world
capped an awesome event with a few surprises.
Twenty-three countries produced the players for the 64-player
feld, each one of them surviving brutal qualifers for the right to
play ball on The Rock. And unlike last year, where most fell in the
opening round, this year saw nine international players make it out
of the frst round. A trio of them would go on to the round of 16,
and an upstart from the Czech Republic named Lukas Kraus made
it all the way to the fnals, coming within a last-second shot of winning the tournament and ending Baby Shaq's reign.
Kraus was seemingly one of the only players who could
match the 6-3 Baby Shaq's devastating power game. Kraus' own
inside game, complemented by a nice outside jumper, launched
him through the opening rounds. As he moved from game to
game, the crowd took notice and started to get behind him.
Before the fnal game began, Kraus called out, "Where is Baby
Shaq? Let's play now!" The crowd was on its feet in a nail-biter
where the two traded the lead multiple times, right up to the
last second. Down by one point, Kraus attempted a last second
outside jumper for the win, but came up short, sealing Jones's
13-12 victory.
"This year's Red Bull King of the Rock was the best one so
far," said NBA star Rajon Rondo, who has hosted the one-onone tournament since its inception in 2010. "The competition
gets better every year. Congratulations to two-time champion
Baby Shaq."
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