The NBA’s storied fraternity of All-Star Weekend Slam Dunk Contest participants has many distinguished alumni.
Michael Jordan, Julius Irving, Dominique Wilkins, Kobe Bryant and Dwight Howard are all current or likely future Hall of Famers.
This year’s Pledge Class, however, will be fortunate even to produce a single All-Star.
Every year I look forward to finding out who will be participating in the All-Star festivities, the greatest of which being the Slam Dunk Contest. Therefore, you can imagine my disappointment after a recent Google search revealed the identities of this year’s lackluster crop of jammers.
Could the casual basketball fan identify the names of Derrick Williams, Iman Shumpert or Chase Budinger? Oh, and Paul George. You can’t forget Paul George. I hope John and Ringo will be joining him.
The NBA has upset fans with some poor Slam Dunk lineups in the past, but this is a new low. The participants average both 21 years of age and less than two seasons of prior league experience. Two of the players, Budinger and Williams, average less than 10 points per game. George is the highest scoring player in the contest, and he averages only 12 points.
The most infuriating part of this year’s contest is not even its lack of star power, but the new set of rules that are being put into place.
In the past, the field of four dunkers was narrowed down to two after an opening round that consisted of two dunks. This year, there will be only a single round with each participant dunking four times. Also, the panel of judges used in previous years to help determine the winner are now either a thing of the past or completely irrelevant, as the Slam Dunk champion will be determined entirely by fans voting by text and Twitter.
Why must everything be interactive these days? Without relevant judges or a field that narrows itself down, the Slam Dunk Contest has devolved from a competition of creativity and athleticism to something more akin to selecting the Homecoming King and Queen.
But why stop here? Aren’t there some more competitions we can put up to a fan vote?
Maybe the Olympics would like it if we decided to vote for all the medal-winners this year. Maybe we should give out Nobel Prizes to whoever can get the most retweets on Twitter. Maybe we should start electing the nation’s most popular or good-looking politician instead of the best political visionary. Oh wait, we already do that.
David Stern, if you’re reading this somewhere in this world through the magic of the Internet, I beg of you not to give up on the Slam Dunk Contest. I know fans and analysts alike have been complaining that the quality of the event has been dropping in the last decade, but this is not the way to fix the problem.
The Slam Dunk contest needs star power. It needs charisma. I’m not necessarily asking for LeBron James here, but I’m definitely not requesting Chase Budinger. It doesn’t matter how spectacular a dunk it, if the fan doesn’t recognize the player or have a rooting interest he or she won’t really care.
The Slam Dunk contest is about showmanship, rootability and superstar status. These are things we will never get watching Paul George.
Edmond Events
