NBA All-Star Weekend is done for another year. Reviews on the proceedings have been positive, generally. The players played harder in the main game(s). Damian Lillard was a feel-good story winning the Three-Point contest. Shooting Stars is a glorified intermission distraction, but I don\u2019t think anyone minded it. (See note at bottom of this post, though.) The one sore thumb remaining is the Slam Dunk competition. With all due respect to Keshad Johnson, neither he nor the 2026 show will go down in history. Ten years from now the 2026 competition will be used as an Extreme Level sports trivia question or a means to win a beer at your local bar. \u201cBet you can\u2019t name\u2026\u201d If people are complaining about anything this year, it\u2019s the dunkers.<\/p>\n
When confronting the issue, we bump up against two realities:<\/p>\n
The event lacks star power. This has gotten increasingly worse over the years. Casual observers, and even some dedicated fans, couldn\u2019t name or remember the four participants in 2026. Having judges presiding over the event is enough. We don\u2019t need observers turned into a parliament of owls when the contestants are announced.The Dunk Contest has been a regular part of All-Star festivities since 1984. That\u2019s 42 years. How many dunks exist, really? What haven\u2019t we seen? In order to really \u201cwow\u201d us, players have to go higher, farther, add more rotations. Even if someone were inclined, do they have the physical gifts to pull it off? Is it even possible without multiple failures?<\/p>\n
These two problems feed into each other. Any dunks above the pedestrian\u2014let alone stand-out slams\u2014are the province of the young. That\u2019s why springy unknowns get invited to this event. Understanding this, the league\u2019s stars are in a no-win situation. What do they win if they join the competition? Beating a bunch of obscure players doesn\u2019t bring any glory. The only thing worse would be losing to them, a real possibility, since big-name players tend to be older with less hops and more mileage on their frames.<\/p>\n
If you follow the competition to its logical conclusion, this is always where you\u2019ll end up. As long as the Dunk Contest is about the actual dunking, un-augmented and unfiltered, its decline will continue.<\/p>\n
The trick is to keep the general integrity of the competition while adding enough interest and story outside of raw athleticism to make it palatable.<\/p>\n
Put another way, we don\u2019t just need dunks, we need spectacle and story to give the dunks meaning.<\/p>\n
This is where the NBA should turn to the experts on creating spectacle and story out of nothing. Long-time readers know where we\u2019re going with this. The the league needs to WWE-ify the dunk competition, adding meaning and\/or narrative beyond the actual leaps and slams.<\/p>\n
Before anyone gets up in arms about \u201cpredetermined\u201d and \u201cfake\u201d, we know. We know. I\u2019m not suggesting that the NBA rig the contest. I wouldn\u2019t put it past them if it served their purpose. Does anyone really want to argue for the historic sanctity of the event and do a statistical comparison of the judge\u2019s ratings? It\u2019s already a show\u2026far more so than the shooting or skills events, or even the actual games. But we don\u2019t need to go that far in order to add spice to the event.<\/p>\n
The real problem is, the Dunk Contest doesn\u2019t feel like a show. It\u2019s like watching a stand-up comedian deliver their routine with the same cadence as a presidential candidate delivering a speech. The mascots and mayhem around the edges of the court feel as natural and engaging as that same candidate breaking out into a messy version of a TikTok dance to see more relatable. Sit down, unc. It\u2019s giving cringe.<\/p>\n
Again, the WWE is in the BUSINESS of converting exhibition-style \u201cfighting\u201d (somewhat akin to dunking without any opposition) into engaging, \u201cmust-see\u201d television. It\u2019s all they do! The NBA doesn\u2019t have to copy them wholesale, but they should at least adopt some of the principles for Dunk Contest purposes.<\/p>\n
The first rule the league needs to understand is that what you do out there matters far less to the audience than who is doing it. In one of his many autobiographies, former WWE star Mick Foley described the first half of his career as a series of death-defying feats that ruined his body forever, offered in exchange for tepid applause. The second half of his career consisted of pulling a sweat sock out of his tights and sticking it in an opponent\u2019s mouth to standing ovations. The difference was simple: in the latter years of Foley\u2019s run, the audience knew and loved him. It didn\u2019t matter if his athletic prowess was on par with a first-grade-aquarium-dwelling Guinea Pig. When observers identified with him, they engaged.<\/p>\n
This is not quite so easy with the NBA Dunk Contest. For the reasons listed above, the league can\u2019t just recruit four elderly stars whom everyone already knows. Even if they could convince the superstars, it wouldn\u2019t work. The ways in which we \u201cknow\u201d NBA players are limited. We see them operating on the court, in the midst of standardized competition. Outside of that context, they\u2019re unproven. If LeBron James got rim-checked on a dunk-contest attempt, we wouldn\u2019t go, \u201cWho cares? It\u2019s LeBron! All 10\u2019s!\u201d We know James as dominant, the GOAT. As soon as he showed he wasn\u2019t, we\u2019d stop believing in his Goathood, which is exactly what these stars fear.<\/p>\n
The trick is to populate the contest with players who can actually dunk well, layering some kind of relatable identity or story on top of them to translate to the audience. It\u2019s the same difference between watching a bunch of wrestlers do abstract body slams to each other in the ring (and yawning at it) and getting wrapped up in the story and its outcome.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s nearly impossible to convey personal relatability in a seconds-long introduction to an All-Star Weekend event, but you could certainly craft narrative archetypes for the participants. It\u2019d be easier if something differentiated them from each other organically. This is a strong argument against having four, relatively-similar unknowns participate. There\u2019s no texture, no edges on which to hang a story. We need an older veteran, trying to prove he\u2019s still got it\u2026a young upstart, trying to topple the field\u2026the cocky favorite, looking to stay on top of the hill. The participants don\u2019t have to embody these personas. We don\u2019t need them to do promo speeches. We just need to be able to talk about them in this way.<\/p>\n
Once we have the basic threads of the story, we need to set up the contest to reflect that, with announcers and presentation matching. They don\u2019t have to hammer every point all the time. Coming back to a couple touchstones would be enough to add shape to the event.<\/p>\n
Want to see what I mean? In a crazy, parallel world, here\u2019s what I would have done with this year\u2019s contest, not altering the participants (much), just adding one element to spice things up and set the table for the future.<\/p>\n
We introduce our four participants: Johnson, Carter Bryant, Jaxson Hayes, and Jase Richardson. The crowd doesn\u2019t know any of them. That\u2019s fine. They go through their first dunks. Polite applause and oohs. Everything is on course. The contest will be only semi-memorable unless someone uncorks a huge dunk.<\/p>\n
All of a sudden, someone comes out of the tunnel in a hoodie. He grabs a microphone, rips off the hood, and says:<\/p>\n
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Paul\u2026Heyman. You probably know me better from Wrestlemania (tickets available now for Las Vegas, April 18th and 19th) but I am here today to disrupt this little shindig. You see with all due respect to our fine participants, I have brought along with me today the man who is going to WIN this contest. He is the High Flyer, the Rim Destroyer, the most Game-Ending, Fatal-Finishing, Slam-Dunking specimen this league has seen in its ENTIRE HISTORY. And his name is\u2026Shaedon Sharpe!<\/p>\n
At this point the Imperial Death March (or some other ominous villain music) plays and Sharpe comes out of the tunnel, dressed in a hooded cape or some such. He throws back the hood like Heyman did, drops it to the ground, grabs a ball, and leaps into a very non-complicated (he cannot miss this first dunk) but very high-flying straight jam through the hoop. The judges give him a score and at this point the contest is ON. It\u2019s the four unknowns versus the ringer.<\/p>\n
If Sharpe wins (and he well might) it\u2019s even better. Because next year you have him come back to face the guy out for revenge, a star that wants to put Young Sharpe in his place (remembering that \u201cin its ENTIRE HISTORY\u201d remark), and an upstart contender.<\/p>\n
Notice what we\u2019ve done. We\u2019ve gotten a young guy in Sharpe\u2026not a star, just a really good dunker. We\u2019ve immediately established an identity for him without him speaking a word. We\u2019ve disrupted the normality of the contest (adding an extra entrant, surprising the heck out of everyone) to gain huge attention without breaking the format hardly at all. We\u2019ve set up Sharpe as the villain against the field, establishing at least a rough identity for him and the formerly-anonymous quartet of dunkers originally scheduled for our program. And we\u2019ve set up a hopeful storyline for next year to spin off of should Shaedon win. We\u2019ve added no huge names, no sweeping format changes, no complicated explanations, and very little extra time. But now all of a sudden everyone is talking about our contest instead of struggling to remember it.<\/p>\n
You get the idea. Long story short, it\u2019s possible that the Slam Dunk contest doesn\u2019t need to be fixed. It needs to be personalized and given meaning beyond itself. A little frosting on that cake will make it easier to swallow. More fun too.<\/p>\n
And P.S., about the Shooting Stars competition? I don\u2019t hate it, but could we get some version of \u201celimination\u201d where opposing players shoot from the top of the key or three-point arc, the first one to make it eliminating the other? That\u2019s always fun and exciting in person. It\u2019d be interesting on an NBA level too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA All-Star Weekend is done for another year. Reviews on the proceedings have been positive, generally. The players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-608697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-analysis","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-portland","13":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","14":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116088031312522781","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608697","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=608697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}