{"id":606280,"date":"2026-02-16T13:21:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/606280\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T13:21:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:21:14","slug":"jaxson-hayes-on-whether-he-will-be-in-future-nba-slam-dunk-contests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/606280\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaxson Hayes on whether he will be in future NBA slam dunk contests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> backup center Jaxson Hayes was one of the four participants in this year’s NBA slam dunk contest, which took place on Saturday during All-Star weekend. Hayes had a disappointing showing<\/a>, as he was eliminated and didn’t advance to the final round.<\/p>\n

Only one Lakers player has ever won the dunk contest \u2014 that was the late great Kobe Bryant, who did so in 1997 as an 18-year-old rookie. When asked if he may compete in future dunk contests during All-Star weekend, Hayes said he probably won’t, although he didn’t completely rule it out.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Via ClutchPoints<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my seventh year in the NBA, I\u2019m gonna be in my eighth year next year. You see these young guys got way more legs. I went up for my first dunk, I felt it right in my knees,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cI don\u2019t think so. It was fun to do and to say I did it, but I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m not gonna fully shut out the dunk contest, but most likely no. I\u2019d rather much be in Hawaii right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old can now fully focus on helping the Lakers make a late-season surge and go on a deep playoff run this spring. He’s averaging 6.9 points 77.2% field-goal shooting, 3.9 rebounds and 0.6 blocks in 17.7 minutes a game this season, and given starting center’s Deandre Ayton’s inconsistency, Hayes will be counted on to provide quality minutes the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Jaxson Hayes on whether he will be in future NBA slam dunk contests<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Lakers backup center Jaxson Hayes was one of the four participants in this year’s NBA slam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,1586,3203,32,1536,150,6,19405],"class_list":["post-606280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-deandre-ayton","tag-dunk-contest","tag-jaxson-hayes","tag-kobe-bryant","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-nba-slam-dunk-contest"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116080521136524269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606280","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=606280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}