This past weekend, the NBA all-star game was played in Toronto. Although the game itself may not have been the shining moment of the weekend festivities, the slam dunk contest was by far the best it may have ever been. After years of disappointment, I was not looking forward to the slam dunk contest, but somehow I ended up watching the competition, and I am so glad I did. It shows that there is still plenty of life left in what some considered an outdated competition.
The two dunking stars that put on the show of a lifetime were defending dunk champion, Zach LaVine, from the Timberwolves and the Magic's Aaron Gordon. The two of them challenged each other dunk after dunk, with perfect score after perfect score. They somehow topped the performance Vince Carter put on in 2000, and the duo of Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins in 1988. Remember that neither M.J. or Clyde Drexler executed windmill dunks from the free throw line as LaVine did; they were several feet closer to the basket when they left the air. The fact is that the dunks that LaVine and Gordon made were better than anyone else's in the history of the competition, bar none.
LaVine may have won the contest, but I was much more amazed by Gordon's dunk. He was sitting overhead of the Magic's mascot, Stuff. In fact, that was the best dunk of the night by far. J.A. Adande described the dunk saying, "he jumped over Stuff, grabbed the ball off his head, jackknifed his legs like a diver in the tuck position, put the ball under both legs and slammed it home." Perhaps most important, however, is that years from now this dunk contest video will be shown and people will see Gordon jumping over Stuff and say to themselves "Holy @#$%." The response: "Yeah, and that is the guy who lost."
LaVine said he came back to defend his 2015 just like players like Jordan and Wilkins, who competed several times. Although he intended for it to be a salute to the old school, LaVine and Gordon made a salute to the new school. So from this day on, the 2016 dunk contest will be the standard and all others will be judged.
