Hard to believe that you just read that headline, isn’t it?
NBA All-Star Weekend is just one month away, with the dunk contest—the third event of the festivities—scheduled for Feb. 15.
It’s now been nine years since Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon gave us one of the most memorable dunk contests of the century, and nothing has ever really compared since then.
G Leaguer Mac McClung is the two-time defending champion of the event, with Donovan Mitchell, the 2018 winner; Anfernee Simons, who prevailed in 2021; and 2022 victor Obi Toppin being the only relevant names to go all the way since LaVine topped Gordon in 2016.
No offense to Glenn Robinson III (2017 winner), Hamidou Diallo (2019) and Derrick Jones Jr. (2020), but over the better part of the past decade, we’ve had to sit home on a Saturday night and watch at least two or three players who can’t even crack a 75 overall on 2K throw down dunks that most of us did some variation of during recess in middle school.
We did get to see Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown participate in last year’s dunk contest, but for that, we were punished with the presence of Jacob Toppin. Everyone’s favorite New York Knick, right?
Brown didn’t really even put on a show, leaving fans disappointed with the dunk contest for an eighth straight year.
Let’s mix things up.
The first dunk contest went down way back in 1984, so it’s really no surprise that 40 years of dunking has started to feel repetitive. Pair that with the fact that the NBA is frequently getting role players—and not the good ones—to be the ones trying to get creative with some high-flying antics, and it’s hard to find the desire to tune in.
Give us anything other than what we currently have for the dunk contest. How about a celebrity dunk contest? Yeah, the hoops would need to be lowered (for sure), but at least we’d be more entertained. Perhaps you even have players’ kids start throwing dunks down. Maybe do away with the event completely and replace it with a new one. We just need change. Badly.
The league has had absolutely no problem being innovative when it comes to the All-Star Game, evident by this year’s format. There will now be a mini-tournament featuring four teams and three games, with the winners of Games 1 and 2 (the semifinals) squaring off in the championship, where the first squad to 40 points wins.
Eight players will make up each team. Three teams will have eight NBA All-Stars, and the fourth will simply be the winning team of the Rising Stars game.
Surely there will be mixed reviews of the new All-Star Game, or what should now be considered the All-Star Tournament, but at least the NBA went out on a limb and got creative. It gave us something new to look forward to, a feeling we haven’t had with the dunk contest.
As hard as change is, it’s time for it.
