INGLEWOOD, Calif. — You never know exactly what you’re going to see at All-Star Saturday night, particularly with the anchor event repelling the game’s best players for more than a decade.
Will you see the start of something for a young NBA player, the first highlight in the unwritten career that will follow? Or is this a one-of-one moment, the answer to a trivia question about a dunk contest that blends with the other forgettable ones that have tarnished the reputation of the event?
Where Keshad Johnson and his 15 minutes of fame from winning the 2026 Slam Dunk contest fare against a career that has spanned over 257 minutes of NBA action hasn’t yet been determined.
Johnson, an undrafted player who worked his way from a two-way deal to a standard contract with the Miami Heat, capped All-Star Saturday at Intuit Dome by dancing his way to a championship over San Antonio Spurs rookie Carter Bryant.
“This is home to me,” Johnson, an Oakland, Calif., native, said. “This is the West Coast. We’ve got a swag. We’ve got a flavor. I felt like I was at home, so when I saw everybody, saw the fans, it is like what I dreamed of.
“Once you’re in a dream, you control your dream, you can do anything in your dream. I felt like the fans were with me. I just did what I did, put my best foot forward, did what I could do.”
The ending was anticlimactic.
Bryant, needing a 47.6 to win, almost failed to make a dunk in the 90-second time period. He repeatedly missed a dunk where he attempted to put the ball between his legs before throwing himself an off-the-backboard lob. He wasted precious time talking to NBC analyst Vince Carter before missing again, forcing Bryant to rush a final underwhelming dunk to avoid being shutout.
“That’s probably the dunk I did the most out of all the dunks I did today in my life,” Bryant said. “I’ve been doing that dunk since I was 14 years old. Just, the ball didn’t roll my way tonight. No, but it happens. It’s a part of life.”
Bryant’s dunk scored just 43 points, securing Johnson the win.
The Portland Trail Blazers’ Damian Lillard won the 3-point contest, and the New York Knicks team of Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and Allan Houston won the Shooting Stars contest.
Johnson tried to bring energy throughout the contest, dancing before and after his dunks. He put the ball between his legs off a lob to start the finals and capped his competition with a one-handed slam from inside the free-throw line.
Bryant opened the contest, quickly entering the floor through the smoky locker room tunnel and connecting on his first dunk, a baseline 360-degree windmill dunk.
Johnson hit the court with rapper E-40, jumping and dunking over the rapper while posing for the cameras.
Bryant won the first round with the first perfect 50s of the contest, his powerful lob and one-handed windmill earning 50-point scores from Dwight Howard and Dominique Wilkins. Johnson cemented his spot in the finals with a baseline reverse dunk.
Orlando rookie Jase Richardson, the son of two-time dunk champ Jason Richardson (2002, 2003), followed Bryant and also made his first attempt: a two-handed reverse windmill off a bounced lob he threw himself. Richardson, the shortest competitor in the contest, took a nasty fall while attempting a 360 lob on his second attempt. He avoided injury and completed a two-handed 360 before getting eliminated.
Los Angeles Lakers center Jaxson Hayes seemingly missed his mark and ran past the free-throw line before a simple one-handed dunk ended the first stretch of dunks. On his second dunk, Hayes started by lobbing the ball and tapping it to himself before he put it underneath his leg on the way to the dunk. It was his highest-scored dunk in the first round, but it wasn’t good enough to move him into the finals.