This Year the NBA Announced Dwight Howard Would Be Participating in the Slam Dunk Contest, Why That’s A Step In The Right Direction And Why They Should Go So, So Much Further
The 1988 Slam Dunk contest had 3 future hall of famers (Jordan, Wilkins, Drexler), marked a turning point in Michael Jordan’s road to world domination, and put the Slam Dunk Contest itself on the map.
1988 was the Jordan From The Free Throw Line dunk year.
Whether you look at the Washington Post’s list or Sports Illustrated’s Top 100 NBA Players list, only 1 of the top 10 players today has ever participated in a slam dunk contest: Giannis Antetokounmpo (currently the #1 player in 2020), as a rookie contestant, in 2015.
Kobe, winning the Slam Dunk Contest as an 18 year-old rookie in 1997
So how about top 30?
Only 3 players in this season’s top 30 have ever participated in a Slam Dunk Contest (Antetokounmpo in ’15, Paul George in ’12 and ’14, Blake Griffin who won in ’11).
All Slam Dunk Contest Results Ever
Cherry Picking
While it’s not entirely (or, at all) fair to compare known hall-of-famers to players still cementing their legacies, it’s somewhat safe to say: the NBAs biggest stars no longer participate in one of the sports most entertaining and popular events.
At least not like they use to.
The most popular NBA stars have a lot more to lose than they did in 1988.
Darren Rovell of ESPN came across a list of the 15 highest-paid players in the NBA during the 1988–89 season as originally reported in Sport Magazine. Those 15 highest-played players… had an average salary of just $1.9 million or approximately $3.7 million in (2014) dollars.
In 2020, the average player makes twice as much as the average Top 15 player made 30 years ago.
The average NBA player salary is $7.7 million for the season that …will run through June 2020.
With the game being larger than ever (temporary dips in ratings notwithstanding), creating more wealth, and permeating the pop culture to evermore omnipresent levels, today’s players are taken very seriously.
Adam Silver to The Washington Post,
“I’m not surprised that our ratings are down thus far,” Silver told The Washington Post by telephone from New York on Thursday. “I’m not concerned, either. In terms of every other key indicator that we look at that measures the popularity of the league, we’re up. We’re up in attendance over a record-setting high from last year. Social media engagement remains in the magnitude of 1.6 billion people on a global basis. Our League Pass viewership is up. Our merchandising sales are up. The issue then, for me, is that we’re going through a transition in terms of how [the league] is distributed to our fans, particularly our young fans.”
If LeBron James joined the Slam Dunk contest and lost to anyone it would be considered an upset.
1.6 Billion people would notice.
Why risk losing even a small measure of your greatness if you don’t need to?
Why risk missing even one dunk?
A top-20 player, season after season, might see that as a diminishment of his entire career.
Why even put that on the table?
Lebron says he’s never joined the competition due to injury.
“There were times when I wanted to do it. But I came into All-Star Weekend a few times banged up and I didn’t want to risk further injury.”
Injury…of pride.
I’m not actually mad at him for never giving the world the gift of his dunk contest, but, he did have other season where he was not injured.
It’s unfortunate he didn’t want to join the contest those years.
You can’t argue with a man’s money, and it’s understandable why “nothing to gain” is not an enticing incentive to the league’s biggest stars.
But the Slam Dunk Contest shouldn’t be so serious.
It is possibly the most pure-fun event of the NBA season, of all sports, with only the Home Run Derby cometing anywhere near its atmosphere.
So why not lean in to that fun element?
Why not loosen the perception of pride on the line?
And why not accomplish that by adding a lot more ridiculous elements?
This year Dwight Howard is joining a cast of much younger players, and that’s a fun twist for the contest: a contestant that most fans would recognize for his work outside of the Slam Dunk Contest.
It’s a step in the right direction, but it should only be the start.
Getting Over
In professional wrestling there are two ideas, two ethos, that could be, if applied to the Slam Dunk Contest, game changers.
Or at least, game better-makers.
“Getting over” and “clean win”.
Getting over, or being “put over” by another, more popular wrestler, means getting the crowd on your side, in other words, becoming popular.
Whether you’re a heel (bad guy) or face (good guy), a wrestler is considered as having achieved “overness” as long as they get consistent, large pops (sudden cheers/excitement from the audience) for their entrances, catchphrases, and signature in-ring moves.
So, how do some of tomorrow’s biggest wrestling stars get over?
They get a clean win on an established star.
Clean Win
A clean win means beating your opponent without any dirty tricks.
No cheap shots when the ref isn’t looking, no tag team partners running out and distracting your opponent while you hit them with a chair.
A clean win is held in much higher regard than a dirty one.
It’s a signal to all fans and other wrestlers that the promotional leadership (WWE) i.e., The Man, thinks you have what it takes, that your time is now.
A clean loss for a Superstar is so rare there are reams of think pieces listing the very few times it’s occurred.
Goldberg, a wrestler who’s entire persona was based on 1) spear-tackling people out of commission, and 2) how many consecutive wins he had due to his knocking-people-out-of-commission spear tackles, suffered his first ever clean loss in Wrestlemania 33, 20+ years and 295 consecutive wins into his career.
The Undertaker not only lost for the first time in a Wrestlemania match, ending his own streak of 21 Wrestlemania wins (known as, “The Streak”), he, like Goldberg, lost it clean to Brock Lesnar.
That’s how much the WWE has been trying to put Brock Lesnar over, to the point where he has now become half-monster, half-myth, and beating him clean seems a physical impossibility.
Because outcomes come pre-determined in wrestling, it’s a right of passage for the young star on the rise to win against the A+ level veteran.
It launches the career of the younger generation and shows the boss that you as an old-timer are honorable and professional.
Honor is a big deal in the world of professional wrestling, which might be surprising for a sport whose outcomes are “fake”.
The Undertaker never needed to wrestle again, he never needed to end his streak. He came back to put Brock Lesnar over, to elevate the WWE, and signify a passing of the torch to all fans.
It was even Undertaker’s idea to lose clean.
A quick aside: HBO’s ’ “Andre The Giant” has a great segment on WM3 and how Andre kept Hogan guessing, right to the last minute in the ring, on whether he would put him over with a clean win.
Royal Rumble
The third lesson that the Slam Dunk contest, and honestly, all sports, could learn from wrestling?
The Royal Rumble.
Wrestlers enter the ring, one after another, minutes apart, fighting until only one is left standing.
So, here is my 48-step plan to create “The New Slam Dunk Contest of Parallel Universe Futures To Come: Royal Rumble Edition”.
- The contest starts.
- Just like today’s contest, the fans are aware ahead of time of 4 contestants.
- We see them standing in the middle of the court.
- They wave to the fans, America tunes in.
- But oh wait, what’s this?
- The lights go out.
- A large countdown clock hovers on the Jumbotron over head.
- A 20 foot tall number “60” floats above the blacked out arena.
- Then…59…58…
- Dr. J grabs the mic and yells at the first contestant, “time to dunk young buck, you have 57 seconds…56…55”
- The first contestant shits his pants. He was not ready for this.
- He grabs a ball and throws down a dunk.
- 32…31…30
- Dr J. “What else you got young buck?”
- That’s right, contestants have to throw down as many completed dunks as they can in the first 60 seconds.
- Young Buck gets in another clean slam.
- The countdown clock hits 0.
- No one knows what the clock was counting down to.
- Now a spotlight, on the far end of the court where…
- Out runs motherfucking Vince Carter.
- He starts dunking on the opposite end of the court as Young Buck #1.
- No time to waste. Vince starts ripping slams with his shirt off.
- He’s still in great shape for a 43 year old.
- Young Buck #1 has to stop attempting slam dunks as soon as Carter connects with his first.
- “Young Buck #2, your turn”, Dr J yells excitedly.
- Dr. J LOVES saying the phrase, “young buck”.
- YB#2 and Vince are on opposite ends, dunking their hearts, and our minds, out.
- The countdown clock resets.
- 60…59…58…
- Carter continues throwing it down while YB#2 is still getting his bearing, almost lost…lost in the heat of it all.
- The countdown clock hits 0.
- Fucking Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton, suspended by wires, come flying down from the nosebleeds.
- Middleton lands court side and instantly lobs to Giannis who dunks over the announcers table.
- Young Buck #3 realizes he needs a teammate for this one.
- He grabs his guy from the crowd and starts leaping over him, as many attempts and connected dunks as he can get in 60 seconds.
- But we’re not finished.
- Now the clock hits 0 again.
- The lights come up.
- A still falls over the air.
- LeBron James comes up from a hole in the floor of the arena.
- The crowd goes wild.
- He holds a finger up to his lips, it silences them.
- Young Buck #4 is trying his best to connect with the rim but he’s in complete awe of James.
- James takes one run at the basket and jumps from the free throw line, slamming it home.
- James lets the rest of his time run out.
- Baller move.
- YB#4 is intimidated, doesn’t make another dunk.
- Dr. J announces the end…of round 1.
The arena catches its breath.
Maybe the top 4 of the 7, who just engaged in a brutal Royal Rumble Dunkathon, now slow down a bit and get one shot each at another dunk.
Maybe the rest of the contest goes on the way all Slam Dunk Contests have gone over the past 30 years.
Maybe, just maybe, we throw in a late round contender who has been given a bye over the last two rounds.
Maybe that person is someone who has won the contest in a previous year by jumping over a car.
The point is, the slam dunk contest has the potential to be even more slam dunk contest if it can lean into its joy.
Easiest-to-Read List (that I’ve found) of All Slam Dunk Winners
NBA + WWE = Everyone Wins
With added elements from the WWE, NBA legends who lose a round wouldn’t feel so pressured to retain their pride.
The spectacle of it all would distract us, we wouldn’t have 5 minutes of down-time between each dunk to tweet our complaints.
Bringing in the league’s biggest stars and adding a few WWE elements would not only put the dunk contest back into mainstream relevancy on par with it’s most popular years, it would put over a non-household name and ultimately, it would be fun.
Every other competition in sports has importance, which is part of why we like sports: every play, every game is meaningful.
The Slam Dunk contest is the professional sports peak of pure-fun and bragging rights: the two reasons regular people actually play sports.
Please, Lebron?
I know we’re past the days of the David Stern’s Kingdom, and well into the age of player empowerment, so don’t do it for the league the way an Undertaker coming out of retirement puts Wrestlemania and WWE on another cultural level for a few media cycles.
Do it for the fans.
Do it for your 8 year-old self.
Player empowerment? Do it for the younger players.
Just do it right before you retire Lebron James.
Just do it, Lebron. I think your shoes would agree.
Your last year in the league? Get in the contest and put over someone who was born when you were drafted, or even win, I don’t care, that would be awesome too.
Start an amazing new tradition that would cement your legacy even further, and most importantly, be so very, very fun to watch.
Or, if not all of that, if a Royal Rumble and Lebron James and a flying Giannis are too much to ask, at least put Ja Morant in it next year.