Watch what some considered the best dunk of NBA All-Star Saturday Night
Saturday’s NBA’s Slam Dunk contest was, by all accounts, fairly underwhelming and left many fans nostalgic for classic contests like those of 1988, 2000 and 2016 — those once-in-a-generation masterpieces of dunkalicious fun that get endlessly replayed on NBA TV and immortalized on YouTube.
But that’s not to say there weren’t a couple of fantastic dunks in this year’s event, like this one from Dennis Smith Jr.:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfUoqJngMB5/
Smith went through the legs, switched hands and slammed it home — sending the crowd into a frenzy. It’s down to either that dunk or Larry Nance Jr.’s tribute to his father’s astonishing winning dunk at the 1984 contest for the best slams of the year.
Larry Nance Sr. won the first dunk contest in 1984.
Larry Nance Jr. made him proud Saturday night. pic.twitter.com/JxJnVhrU3a
— ESPN (@espn) February 18, 2018
More than 30 years later, the Nance special still holds up, and the throwback Suns uniform for the Cavaliers’ young star was a nice touch that the elder Nance loved.
Speaking of tributes, Utah’s Donovan Mitchell won this year’s contest by paying tribute to one of the greatest dunks of all time, the one Vince Carter busted out to win the 2000 dunk contest.
Fitting that the rook pays tribute to Vince Carter to win the dunk contest 🔥 pic.twitter.com/UAgKkb7YLR
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 18, 2018
Mitchell, however, drew a massive Twitter backlash from fans annoyed at the lack of originality:
Dear future dunk contest participants,
Don't remake this dunk unless you can surpass it. And you can't.
Thankshttps://t.co/q2ApLxJpQO
— Jay King (@ByJayKing) February 18, 2018
The inflated scores from the celebrity judging panel drew jeers from ESPN’s Rob Perez, who said judges need to stop giving perfect scores to dunks that aren’t perfect.
https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/965070705707528193
Perez is absolutely right. A 50 should be reserved for dunks like Carter’s winning dunk from 2000, or from the collaboration between Aaron Gordon and Stuff the Magic Dragon in 2016; Gordon losing that dunk contest to Zach LaVine was the biggest travesty in dunk contest history.
One of Mitchell’s other dunks drew similar poor reviews from the social media universe.
https://twitter.com/KofieYeboah/status/965062905476603905
Considering Giannis Antetokounmpo jumped over Tim Hardaway Jr. in a game in New York earlier this month, you don’t get a 50 for jumping over a guy who’s shorter than Peter Dinklage when he crouches down.
It’s also worth noting that Glenn Robinson III won last year’s contest by jumping over 6-foot-9 Paul George and carrying his momentum over Boomer, the Pacers’ mascot, plus one of the Indiana cheerleaders.
But then again, there’s a reasonthe 1988, 2000 and 2016 dunk contests were called “once in a generation” performances. Simple math tells us it will be at least another decade before we see another dunk contest of that caliber.
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