After watching Blake Griffin soar over a car to win this year’s NBA Slam Dunk Contest, the common question was: what can we expect for an encore? In order to increase the grandeur of Griffin’s final throwdown, he not only needed his teammate to pass him the ball from the sunroof below as Griffin flew overhead, but also needed a massive choir at centre court singing “I Believe I Can Fly.” It does make for great highlight reel material, and the fans do go home with something to talk about, but other people are questioning whether the use of props cheapens the event by making it about but the dunk.
The Slam Dunk Contest has been somewhat of a novelty since its inception in 1984. Despite some memorable dunks when looking over the history of the event, the event was waning in popularity for most of the 90s until it was finally axed after the lackluster 1997 All-Star weekend. The event then had a massive return in 2000, as Vince Carter won over the world with several dunks the world had never seen. With the creativity of a windmill through the legs, Carter had inspired a new generation of dunking, but perhaps the bar was set too high. Future competitions involved the athletes taking upwards of 15 (or more) tries to successfully pull off a dunk. Novelties were introduced to keep the event interesting, such as the ‘dunk wheel’ in 2003 having contestants perform famous dunks of the past chosen by a Wheel of Fortune-esque spin. The result was dunks lacking creativity to go along with certain dunks unable to be replicated by some of the contestants.
By the time 2005 came about, windmill dunks and 360° were commonplace and the fans were tiring of the same stuff. As the physical limits of what a person can do was causing a lack of creativity, the dunk contest introduced props for a means of innovation. Five years later, we have seen impressive dunks such as Dwight Howard dunking on a 12-foot net, Gerald Green blowing out a candle placed in a cupcake on the rim, and, this past week Javale McGee dunk two balls and then three ball on consecutive dunks.
So what’s wrong with creativity coming from props and stage performance? DeMar DeRozan has twice been a contestant and narrowly missed winning in 2010, but he stated most recently that he’s not into all the glitz and glamour that the event has turned into. "I'm a dunker. Dunk contests, you go out there and dunk. I'm not into all the props and everything.” He believes that it’s no longer a dunk contest, but rather a ‘prop dunk contest.’ And he’s absolutely right. Past winners have prolonged the event with hyping up the audience, such as Dwight Howard going into a phone booth to put on a Superman cape before jumping from the free throw line only to throw the ball from a distance into the hoop below. The cape does nothing but waste time from the inevitable dunk (much like Griffin’s choir), but the suspense does sometimes add to the excitement. The key is to not overdo anything and lose the fans interest. Doing so is the prerogative of the player, not the event.
The All-Star game itself is not in any way trying to determine the best player on the planet by having them compete against one another. It is a showcase for the fans to be entertained and the players to have fun. The same should go for the dunk contest. The idea should be to entertain fans and not necessarily determine who the most skilled dunker is. Besides, the best dunkers often don’t even want to compete in the event. One would be hard pressed to argue that Nate Robinson, the only 3-time winner of the Slam Dunk Contest, is the greatest dunker of all-time. The whole idea of the Slam Dunk Contest is for the fans to go home with seeing something unbelievable, something never seen before. Josh Flock of The Express-Times explained it very well how Griffin’s final dunk was not even the best dunk of the night. In fact, every other contestant in the competition had a dunk that was more difficult to perform. But, with that being said, no amount of windmills or alley-oops humanly possibly creates the sense of amazingness when it can be combined with the creativity of props and theatrics to lift up the dunk to another level. Amazing dunks in themselves will win if they truly are new, creative, and difficult, even if they don’t have that special outfit or backup singers. In the meantime, if creating an amazing dunk that will be replayed over and over involves jumping over a car, I’ll be excited to see where this leads the dunkers for next year’s contest.
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