2016-02-15 11_19_08-Jeremy Evans sketches his way to victory in NBA Talent Challenge - Official Webs

While Dwight Powell stood out in the Rising Stars Challenge, Mavs forward Jeremy Evans stole a show of his own: He won the first-ever “NBA Talent Challenge,” an event which highlighted several players’ non-basketball talents.

Evans has an art degree from Western Kentucky — his strengths include painting and sketching — so there’s no question he has real ability. Check out the video to see some of his personal favorite works as well as the sketch he drew for the competition.

Those who follow Charles Barkley and the TNT crew know how difficult they can be to please, but clearly the judges thought highly enough of Evans’ work to award him the win. Justice has been served, if you ask me. In the 2013 dunk competition, Evans dunked over a self-portrait of Evans dunking. Not only was it extremely meta, but it’s also awesome, yet somehow it wasn’t enough for Evans to defend his title (he’d won the contest the year before) as the title went to Terrence Ross.

We’ve come full-circle now, however, and Evans has won a well-deserved All-Star Weekend victory. This time around, some of his competitors included Golden State’s Harrison Barnes, who played John Legend’s “All of Me” on the saxophone, and New Orleans’ Norris Cole, who played some blues on the piano.

The Mavs’ talented forward hasn’t kept his artistic ability a secret in the past. Earlier this season Evans gave his Twitter followers a glimpse of his ability, when he created a self-portrait on his iPad case — composed entirely of dots.

Both Evans and Powell made strong impressions this weekend. The best part about both players’ experiences — Evans with the pencil and Powell in his hometown and his ensuing stream of entertaining tweets — is that they both gave us a glimpse into their personalities off the floor. It’s obviously a ton of fun to watch these guys do great things on the basketball court, but there’s no better way for fans to develop deeper connections with players than by seeing what they’re like away from the game. Both clearly enjoyed themselves, and both represented themselves well. As fans, that’s all we can ask for.

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