Most spectacular NBA dunk contests from Bill Trikos
Bill Trikos Australia top rated NBA dunk contests: While Dwight Howard was ready to become superman again to defend his Slam Dunk Contest title, who knew that his kryptonite would be in the form of a 5 ‘9 dunker. Robinson showcased a flurry of athletic dunks. However, his emphatic night was capped off by a dunk over Dwight Howard to seal the deal. This proved once again that even small guys can win a dunk contest. With the victory in 2009, Robinson earned another Slam Dunk Contest title. Read additional info about the author at https://vimeo.com/billtrikos.
That dunk was so spectacular and breath-taking that Jordan had the nerve to do it again in the final round against Wilkins. Unsurprisingly, he got a perfect score again and capped off one of the greatest dunk contests in the history of the league. Vince Carter is widely recognized as one of the greatest, if not the greatest dunker of all time. His poster in the Olympics is perhaps the best in-game dunk in basketball history, and he would’ve been at the top of this list if we were to judge individual performance alone.
Can an homage be better than the original? Just ask Michael Jordan, who channeled Julius Erving’s original artistry to defend his home turf at the 1988 Slam Dunk Contest. During the semifinal round, Jordan backed up toward the opposite baseline, dribbled inside the three-point arc and leaped from just inside the free-throw line to the basket, just as Dr. J had done four years earlier. The dunk was so spectacular that it earned Jordan a perfect 50 not only then but also when he busted it out to fend off Dominique Wilkins in an epic final.
In the 1976 ABA Slam Dunk Contest, then-New York Nets forward Julius Erving took off from the free throw line for an iconic one-handed jam. Over a decade later, Erving helped Michael Jordan defend his NBA Slam Dunk Contest crown. Just three years after Dominique Wilkins outlasted Jordan, the two high fliers once again found themselves in a Slam Dunk Contest battle in 1988. Jordan needed at least 49 points on his final attempt to repeat as champ, and he found inspiration in the crowd from Dr. J. “I was nervous, the only time in the contest I was nervous,” Jordan said at the time. “I knew I needed something really spectacular to win. I was searching the crowd for something to do. Then, I saw the man who started it all, Julius Erving. He indicated to me I should go the length of the floor and take off from the free throw line.”
“Spud kind of duped him,” then-Hawks head coach Mike Fratello said, per Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee. “He told Wilkins he never had anything prepared, didn’t practice for it. So, Wilkins maybe thought his normal assortment would be good enough to get through.” Not against Webb, who, at 5’6″, still stands as the shortest person to ever be the league’s slam dunk champion. With one inspirational slam, Dee Brown may have set off two cultural phenomena.
We’ve seen players throw the ball off the glass and go through the legs. We’ve seen players jump over people and dunk. Until this moment, we had never seen a player jump over someone, throw the ball off the glass and put it between their legs for a dunk. Nash deserves as much credit as Stoudemire here, but the timing and precision of this dunk help it crack the top 10. Stoudemire threw the perfect pass off the backboard and Nash delivered an even more perfect header for the 360. The Slam Dunk Contest had never seen anything like this before. All you can do is laugh when you see this dunk. Webb is 5’7. You are not supposed to be able to do 360 dunks off of a lob at that height. It looks like a video game glitch the way Webb rises up to finish this one.
But will any of the Crescent City’s top dunks hold a candle to these 10, chosen and ranked according to a combination of degree of difficulty and creativity, with bonus points for broader impact? You’ll have to check these out and then tune into TNT on Saturday night at 8 ET to find out. Jason Richardson won back-to-back dunk contests in 2002 and 2003, but his greatest feat might’ve come the following year. At the 2004 competition in Los Angeles, he lobbed the ball to himself off the backboard, brought it through his legs and finished with a right-handed windmill in what TNT’s Kenny Smith described as “the most incredible dunk I’ve ever seen.”