![]() “I might be the underdog, but I’m still in game mode,” he said in an introductory video. ![]() “That was fantastic.” Still, Shumpert had no illusions about his standings before Monday’s finale. I’m so proud of you,” Derek Hough said after Shumpert’s tango, a clear indication of how much he had improved over the season. “There’s a reason why you’ve come the furthest than any other NBA basketball player ever – because you create these amazing moments. During last week’s semifinals, producers made sure to note Shumpert was the first former basketball player to make it that far in the competition. But it didn’t really matter: Fan votes count for a lot on “Dancing With the Stars,” and Shumpert and Karagach were so well-liked that they were never in the bottom two, so they were safe from the possibility of elimination. ![]() My mind was blown.” After that, the judges warmed up to the pair even more, though they still weren’t the favorites. “Holy cow!” judge Carrie Ann Inaba yelled at the end. Their notable height difference, with Shumpert standing at 6 feet 5 inches and Karagach nearly a foot shorter, meant they could accomplish many difficult lifts. However, the momentum started to slowly shift around the sixth week when Shumpert and Karagach let loose with a jaw-dropping contemporary dance inspired by Jordan Peele’s horror film “Us.” The pair earned their first perfect score as the judges called it “brilliant” and “a masterpiece,” and the routine went viral on social media. It was stunning,” Bruno Tonioli raved in the semifinals, calling them “perfection.” It was like watching two hearts and souls totally united. She and her pro partner, Jenna Johnson, debuted impressive routines and cultivated a loyal fan base while dazzling the judges: “You looked like two angels out there. (Oddsmakers had her as the top choice from the start.) Not only is Siwa a talented dancer – she got her start on Lifetime’s “Dance Moms” – but she made history as part of the first same-sex couple on the U.S. On one hand, this was a bit of a surprise considering that Siwa was the reliable frontrunner. Shumpert, who won a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016, became visibly emotional when host Tyra Banks announced his name he’s the first former NBA player to make the finale, let alone win the show. He and Karagach were crowned the champions of season 30, triumphing over teen pop star JoJo Siwa, beloved Peloton instructor Cody Rigsby and “The Talk” co-host Amanda Kloots. Even ABC executives didn’t have high hopes: “When we were casting this season, we thought Iman was too tall to make it past the first few weeks, but he would be so fun,” the network’s head of reality television wrote on Twitter.īut as millions of viewers saw last Monday night, Shumpert proved the skeptics wrong. ![]() At first, it didn’t seem likely that former NBA player Iman Shumpert would do very well on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.” His debut dance during the season premiere was a blast to watch – he and his professional partner, Daniella Karagach, appeared to be having more fun than anyone else – but the judges weren’t particularly impressed.Īs the pair progressed through the season, they received unnecessarily harsh criticism and low scores, especially from famously tough judge Len Goodman.
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