total jerk<\/a> Jaxson Hayes, who served a one-game suspension this week after cheap-shooting Washington Wizards mascot, G-Wiz.<\/p>\nJ-Rich won the first two dunk contests he entered then fell short in 2004, when Indiana Pacers guard Fred Jones backed into the win after a disappointing final round where both competitors missed their last dunks. However, Richardson was transcendent in his first appearance in 2002, delivering the three highest-rated dunks in the contest while seamlessly duplicating a classic Dominique Wilkins windmill dunk and closing on a reserve two-handed jam.<\/p>\n
The younger Richardson is a different type of player than his father. Jase isa five inches shorter at 6-foot-1 and he\u2019s a three-point specialist, a skill that eventually took off for J-Rich but not until his fifth NBA season. Also, J-Rich dunked 81 times in his rookie season, while so far his son has dunked exactly four times.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a weird element of this year\u2019s contest: These guys don\u2019t actually dunk in games. Richardson has four dunks. Bryant has dunked six times. Johnson has nine dunks, and 15 in 37 career games. Hayes dunks a lot, throwing it down 69 times this season before Saturday\u2019s game and 67 times before Tuesday\u2019s contest, and which of those numbers you find funniest says a lot about your age.<\/p>\n
However, Richardson has shown an ability to get up, especially in Michigan State\u2019s preseason dunk contest in 2024, when the freshman put on his dad\u2019s old No. 23 jersey before throwing down a 360-degree slam.<\/p>\n
Plus, he\u2019s significantly shorter than all the other dunkers, which makes dunks look more impressive. How else did Nate Robinson become a three-time champion?<\/p>\n
Dwight Howard was never the same after this.<\/p>\n
Jase probably isn\u2019t the best dunker among Jason Richardson\u2019s sons. That honor goes to his younger brother Jaxon Richardson, who has won multiple dunk contests while still in high school.<\/p>\n
Hey, remember when Jason Richardson won his second dunk title in 2003? We do!<\/p>\n
Jase and Jason could become the first father-son pair to win the Slam Dunk Contest, after Larry Nance, Jr., son of 1984 dunk champ Larry Nance, fell to Donovan Mitchell in the final of the 2018 event. They\u2019d also tie for the family dunk championships record with the Robinson\u2019s and the McClung\u2019s, who have three each.<\/p>\n
Is Jase excited to compete? Sort of.<\/p>\n
The Slam Dunk Contest still struggles to attract star talent, with this group including two rookies and a guy in Johnson who was on a two-way contract six weeks ago. Mac McClung bowing out of this year\u2019s event after three straight titles removes some star power, though he\u2019s playing great for the Windy City Bulls \u2014 27.9 points, 7.9 assists and 1.4 steals in his 14 games. Thursday, he signed a two-way contract with the Chicago Bulls, and it wasn\u2019t just so the NBA could save face before All-Star Saturday!<\/p>\n
Look, with Jimmy Butler out and Trayce Jackson-Davis and Jonathan Kuminga traded, the Warriors are down to one guy who ever dunks, Gary Payton II. But thanks to McClung\u2019s Summer League stint with the Warriors and Richardson\u2019s dad, Golden State could be looking at four straight dunk contests with a vaguely Warriors-adjacent champion. At this point in the 2025-26 season, Warriors fans will take any W they can.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Richardson won the Slam Dunk Contest in his first two NBA seasons with the Golden State Warriors.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3779],"tags":[7,48,6,37651,47,76,3883,22519,1224],"class_list":{"0":"post-590779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando-magic","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-magic","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-news-and-rumors","12":"tag-orlando","13":"tag-orlando-magic","14":"tag-orlandomagic","15":"tag-warriors-history","16":"tag-warriors-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116035898780497469","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}