# The Night the Jazz Needed a Five-Year-Old Dunker
The smallest uniform in EnergySolutions Arena had a big number 1 on it, and the biggest helper on the floor was 7 feet 1 inches tall. When J.P. Gibson went to the basket, the whole place seemed to lean forward.
J.P. was 5 years old, from Layton, Utah, and he was being treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, diagnosed in 2012. His days had included the hard rhythm of appointments, treatments, and waiting rooms. But on this October night in 2014, the Utah Jazz made room for him in a way no hospital schedule could have predicted.
At EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City, Jazz president Randy Rigby signed J.P. to a one-day ceremonial contract. It was part of a team event connected with the Anything Can Be project for children with cancer, and for one evening, the paperwork wasn’t about medicine. It was about basketball.
J.P. stood there in a tiny Jazz uniform, wearing No. 1, with his parents, Josh and Megan Gibson, beside him. There are NBA jerseys, and then there are NBA jerseys that look like they might have come from the toy aisle but somehow carry the weight of a whole family’s hope. His was the second kind.
Then came the sort of assignment every backyard player understands immediately: check into the scrimmage and take it to the hoop.
No complicated playbook. No long explanation. Just a ball, a basket, and a building full of people ready to cheer for one very small teammate.
J.P. dribbled in.
Waiting near the rim was Rudy Gobert, the Jazz center, who at 7 feet 1 had a slight height advantage — “slight” here meaning he could probably change a lightbulb without looking up. In that moment, Gobert became the world’s most overqualified step stool.
It was beautifully practical. J.P. brought the ball toward the basket, and Gobert lifted him up. The crowd rose with him, voices swelling as the smallest player in the building got closer and closer to the rim.
Then J.P. dunked.
Not a layup. Not a pretend shot gently nudged toward the basket. A dunk.
The arena roared.
It was part basketball play, part magic trick, and part very gentle joke. For once, the big man wasn’t the one finishing above the rim. He was the assist. And what an assist it was.
There was no need for a replay review. No one in the building was checking whether it counted in the box score. It didn’t, of course, not in the usual way. But everyone there understood the point immediately.
For J.P. and his family, that night offered something other than the language of treatment. It gave him a jersey, a contract, a cheering section, and a moment at the rim with a teammate tall enough to make the impossible look easy.
For the Jazz, the most important player on the floor wasn’t measured by height, stats, or minutes. He was 5 years old, wearing No. 1, and bringing an arena to its feet.
For one night, J.P. Gibson got to be exactly what every kid with a basketball imagines being.
He was the dunker.