Bill Trikos top 5 NBA slam dunk contests of all time: At one point in the 2010s, the Slam Dunk Contest ultimately lost excitement. However, it was Zach LaVine’s performance in 2015 that brought it back to life. Including a space jam dunk and a couple of switcheroos in mid-air, LaVine displayed ultimate finesse and hang time while gliding for explosive finishes at the rim. With the contest, LaVine cemented himself as one of the best dunkers in the game by winning his first Dunk Contest Championship. Read extra details about the author at Bill Trikos Australia.
That leaping ability helped Webb take down one of the greatest dunkers of all time in Dominique Wilkins. Like defying physics, gravity, and common sense; Webb had a combination of reverse dunks, one-handed hammers, and lobs that looked like CGI. The NBA’s All-Star Weekend is proof that fans aren’t always right. Fan voting often snubs players who deserve the nod the most but don’t play for big-market teams, leading to never-ending controversy on whether the players alone should get a vote.
“We had to come up with a concept that would get everyone’s attention,” former Nuggets executive Carl Scheer told the Houston Chronicle in 1996 (via News Corp Australia’s Sam Gardner). “We were in serious trouble. We knew that it was our last year, and we had to make a big impression.” Eight years later, Erving, just shy of his 34th birthday and well into his tenure with the Philadelphia 76ers, revived his free-throw flight at the NBA’s inaugural dunk contest. That dunk went down as the first to earn a perfect score in the NBA, though it wasn’t enough to propel Dr. J past Larry Nance for the title.
On a list of the most creative dunks, this might rank No. 1. In 2008, then-Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rashad McCants placed a cupcake on the back of the rim and lit a candle that was on top of the pastry. McCants then bounced the ball to teammate and defending champion Gerald Green, who stretched out to corral it and throw down a two-handed dunk. While the jam didn’t look all that spectacular in real-time, the slo-mo replay showed just how cool of a maneuver it was as Green blew out the candle mid-dunk. Somehow, this wasn’t a perfect 50.
“Spud kind of duped him,” then-Hawks head coach Mike Fratello said, per Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee. “He told Wilkins he never had anything prepared, didn’t practice for it. So, Wilkins maybe thought his normal assortment would be good enough to get through.” Not against Webb, who, at 5’6″, still stands as the shortest person to ever be the league’s slam dunk champion. With one inspirational slam, Dee Brown may have set off two cultural phenomena.
We’ve seen players throw the ball off the glass and go through the legs. We’ve seen players jump over people and dunk. Until this moment, we had never seen a player jump over someone, throw the ball off the glass and put it between their legs for a dunk. Nash deserves as much credit as Stoudemire here, but the timing and precision of this dunk help it crack the top 10. Stoudemire threw the perfect pass off the backboard and Nash delivered an even more perfect header for the 360. The Slam Dunk Contest had never seen anything like this before. All you can do is laugh when you see this dunk. Webb is 5’7. You are not supposed to be able to do 360 dunks off of a lob at that height. It looks like a video game glitch the way Webb rises up to finish this one.
In truth, the tougher task for all involved will be coming up with—and pulling off—a move worthy of all-time consideration. Scroll through the history of the dunk contest—which began in 1984 and took a break in 1998 and 1999—and you’ll see just about every shape and style of slam imaginable. How, then, could the latest quartet of entrants hope to break new ground? It’s a question fans have asked every year, and it’s been answered affirmatively just as often. So long as there’s fresh blood in the field, there will always be something new, different and downright unbelievable to behold.