{"id":625692,"date":"2026-02-26T09:05:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625692\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T09:05:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:05:19","slug":"pat-mcafee-gets-mat-ishbia-to-commit-2-million-to-slam-dunk-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625692\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat McAfee gets Mat Ishbia to commit $2 million to slam dunk contest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/nba-stories\/nba-news-all-star-weekend-viewership-reaches-feat-not-seen-24-years\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA Slam Dunk Contest is falling in popularity<\/a>, as the most famous players are refusing to compete. Not only are the most recognizable names begging off, even the best dunkers don&#8217;t see the point of putting themselves out there for the distinction of being the league&#8217;s dunk king. The prestige that the competition once had simply isn&#8217;t there anymore. But <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/phoenix-suns\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Phoenix Suns<\/a> owner <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/tag\/mat-ishbia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mat Ishbia<\/a> may be on his way to doing something to try and change the players&#8217; minds.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7SrXpSLxaJY&amp;t=733s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">In an appearance<\/a> on the the Pat McAfee Show, the Suns owner pledged $2 million to try and reinvigorate the Slam Dunk Contest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a say in how do we get great players in it. How do we make it a great event. How do make the fan experience phenomenal. We\u2019re going to make it an amazing event,\u201d Ishbia said. \u201cLet\u2019s do it. We can do it. Tell me what we\u2019re doing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re going to put a million dollars up for the winner. And then a million dollar donation to a charity of their choice,\u201d McAfee said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDone. Let\u2019s get the best guys in there. Let\u2019s make it awesome,\u201d Ishbia responded.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Suns owner Mat Ishbia has one last-ditch effort to revive NBA Slam Dunk contest<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3703146\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Keshad-Johnson_5ac54f.jpg\" alt=\"Miami Heat forward Keshad Johnson (16) celebrates with the trophy after winning the slam dunk competition during the 2026 NBA All Star Saturday Night at Intuit Dome. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\"  \/>Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>The 2026 NBA Slam Dunk Contest is being regarded by many as one of the worst of all-time. <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/los-angeles-lakers\/lakers-news-jaxson-hayes-truth-bomb-nba-dunk-contest\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jaxson Hayes did a warmup dunk<\/a> in the actual competition. Jase Richardson risked his life. Carter Bryant tried, but he just couldn&#8217;t edge out Keshad Johnson and his quirky dances.<\/p>\n<p>Having a monetary incentive has certainly worked wonders in the past, although it&#8217;s not quite clear if this would get the best players to compete in the contest yet again since they already have millions upon millions in their bank account and wouldn&#8217;t be too incentivized anyway to try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA Slam Dunk Contest is falling in popularity, as the most famous players are refusing to compete.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,3224,6,19405,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":["post-625692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix-suns","tag-basketball","tag-mat-ishbia","tag-nba","tag-nba-slam-dunk-contest","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-phoenixsuns","tag-suns"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116136137492773055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625692","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=625692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}