Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 9:00 am  |  84 responses

The Latest Terrible Dunk Contest Gimmick

by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni

Over the years, as the game’s biggest stars shied away from competing in what was once arguably All-Star Weekend’s signature event, the NBA has felt the pressure to constantly re-invent the Dunk Contest.

Unfortunately, most of the time they have failed miserably.

The latest idea isn’t any better than the previous ones. For some inexplicable reason, an impromptu dunk-off will be held the night prior to the (real) Dunk Contest, with fans voting to determine who will have the honor of competing on Saturday night. Oy.

Here’s the official explanation, via NBA.com:

This one-round slam dunk-in competition will be held during halftime of the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge & Youth Jam on Friday, Feb. 12, and fans will determine the winner by voting via SMS text message and at NBA.com.

The participants will have two dunks each, with a two-minute time limit to complete each dunk. The player with a higher percentage of overall votes will advance to participate in the Sprite Slam Dunk contest on All-Star Saturday Night. The other three contestants in the Sprite Slam Dunk will be announced on Monday, Jan. 18.

For what it’s worth, TNT is going to announce the participants in this “Dunk-In” tonight prior to its weekly double-header broadcast.

What would have been a lot more exciting (and probably drawn more viewers) is if the NBA allowed amateur dunkers to take part in the aerial exhibition, and had fans vote in someone on the Friday night prior to the main event.

But I guess that would make far too much sense.

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  • http://www.nottherealmelvinely.com melvin ely

    you’ve got to be f***ing kidding me

  • davidR

    super whack isht.

  • http://www.nottherealmelvinely.com melvin ely

    I’ve got to wait ONE WHOLE DAY for the dunk contest to get to the final round? Wow. NBA: where pissing off your fans for no explicable reason happens

  • Joe

    I bet the “brilliant” individuals who came up with this, are getting paid six figures…….How sad!

  • http://www.nottherealmelvinely.com melvin ely

    Hey here’s a depressing concept: you guys know that if Yao Ming joins the dunk contest he automatically advances by basically standing under the basket and throwing it in, right?

  • http://www.basketball247.co.uk Greg Tanner

    Oh my life.

    Get Guy Dupuy and Team Flight Brothers up in this, PLEASE!

  • Hussman25

    The L is trying to kill this Contest with these GIMICKS! LET THE DUNKERS DUNK… FOR GOD SAKE!

  • Yesse

    Nba has already failed on the dunk contest’s enough.They have to fail more?I would understand if this would be like a cuut for 8 dunker’s and 4 of them would make it to saturday and have a normal dunk contest.What about the amateur player dunk contest for the guys who qualified the summer sprite dunk circuit?

  • Muwu

    Isn’t this for amateur guys?

    The NBA did this whole dunk things during the sumemr right? Getting amateur guys from all over so one of em will be part of the dunk contest?

  • riggs

    i think they cant let amateurs in due to potential injury risk (im talking out of my a*s here but thats what it seems like to me)

  • http://www.twitter.com/Th3_R3al_Chris Th3_R3al_Chris

    What would revive the contest would be for them to emulate the 2000 showing by, instead of only allowing four participants each year, to inviting nine or ten players. Brandon Jennings used to have his own dunk contests in high school practice. I’m sure he would thrive in it.

  • http://www.youtube.com/ L

    Maybe Shannon CAN dunk now

  • http://theurbangriot.com/ NUPE

    I like the idea of having some amateurs in the contest competing against the pros. Stern should consider that, however probably scared of the prospect that some of the amateurs win.

  • JoeMaMa

    David “Shang Tsung” Stern just sucked the soul out of the contest.

  • http://joeloholic.wordpress.com Joel O’s

    Yesssss. I’ve been wanting to see AI in the dunk contest for years. And T-Mac’s return – he was robbed a decade ago.

  • Muwu

    Really, go google it. I remember watching this NBA thing during the offseason and it was sponsored by Sprite too. They went to a lot of cities and held dunk contests for amateur guys and in some cases I think some And1 guys were there. I CLEARLY remember it.

  • michael scorn

    I just want LeBron to keep his promise of being in the dunk contest.

  • http://www.manutd.com Z

    I don’t understand what the big deal is with letting amateurs dunk against the pros. There are thousands of young brazilians that could out-dribble most midfielders from Champions League teams, doesn’t mean that they’re better, it’s for show… Ok that’s a bad analogy, the young dudes from the favellas actually might very well be better.

  • http://dsjfhklf.com Jukai

    Your NBA dunk contest contestants are: Lebron James, Andre Iguadala, Josh Smith, and Joe from Montana!!!!

  • Young C

    How is this idea any worse than the league office picking four random guys and allowing Nate Robinson in every single year? Besides, now we get 2 dunk contests in one weekend. Maybe people can think for themselves instead of just jumping on the Slam bandwagon. Alot depends on who will be in the dunk-in

  • Randy Brown

    It would still take some shine off of the NBA players if some relative unknown comes in and wins it. As awesome as that would be. And off the back of the Yao comments above, what would happen if T-Mac was in the dunk off? Damn you China

  • Jeronimo

    @Marcel: The idea of allowing amateur (read: non-NBA players) dunkers to take part in the dunk contest is great. The Spanish basketball league (ACB) implemented it a few years ago and one of the amateurs ended second. He was amazing, and like you said, it generated a tremendous buzz.

  • Joe A

    Well, it’s a better idea than the dunk wheel that they had in 2003.

  • Pingback: SLAM ONLINE | » Dwight Doubts He’ll Be in Dunk Contest

  • bakers’ dozen

    What I hate about the contest, by the Bakers’ Dozen:
    1) Two dunks is not making the players reach deep for new ideas
    2) DR J is a horrible judge, because he rates everybody super low. Don’t believe me? Watch ’97 Slam Dunk contest at Youtube and look at the score they gave Darvin Ham. He’s notorious for this.
    3) Make the players alternate dunks so they have time to think about what they are going to do. The reason the 80′s had such great dunk contests was because there were 8-10 players in it, and they each got 3 dunks per round, and three round of dunks. That makes the winner have to complete at least 9 dunks before the night is done. I hate seeing 4 guys dunk the ball twice in each round with two rounds. It’s whack.
    4) I want to see the And 1 ballers vs. NBA dunk off. Make the grand prize $1,000,000 even with no consolation prizes, and then you’ll see guys coming up with new material. Better yet, have people have dunk off’s in major cities around the USA, and have the top 3 advance to compete in the dunk off vs. the NBA All Stars. THAT would rock!

    13

  • LA Huey

    No problem with the idea of the Dunk-in here. Besides, it can’t get any worse than last year’s H-O-R-S-E, right?

  • davidR

    bakers’ dozen for new dunk chairman

  • http://www.twitter.com/JoshElam JE

    There’s still the same amount of rounds and contestants on Saturday Night during the real contest. All this is is a new way of deciding the fourth contestant. In the meantime, the fans get to see a couple extra dunks the night before. Don’t really see what the big problem is.

  • http://www.slamonline.com/ niQ

    DEMAR DEROZAN!!!

  • Elias

    Air Up There/Tdub/Kenny Dobbs to the dunk contest.

  • http://slamonline.com Chris O’Leary

    I still can’t believe the dunk wheel actually happened.

  • http://www.twitter.com/Th3_R3al_Chris Th3_R3al_Chris

    Joe Montana can dunk?!?

  • Tommy Patron

    In my opinion, the NBA is just doing this to try to pump up attention/viewership of the Friday night activities. This is lame.

  • robb

    That idea sucks.

    And honestly Marcel if the NBA allowed amateur dunkers to take part in an aerial exhibition as you suggested is a pretty bad idea, because most certainly these amateurs would out dunk the pros and saturday’s event would lose interest. I would never happen.

    The dunk contest doesn’t need to be reinvented, you need to bring back the 80′s way: the league’s best 8 dunkers, including superstars, and that’s it. I mean, remember 1988? Jordan, Dominique, Drexler.

    We need Shannon, Lebron, Wade, Howard, Iguodala, J-Smoove, Rudy Gay and Jamario to compete.

  • underdog

    More sms, more ca$h. Anyway, I don’t want to see amateur dunkers on the All-Star weekend, this is the NBA, there are plenty of street ball event for them. The thing I don’t get, why 4 players? There should be at least 6, or 8.

  • doom

    damn. I thought it would be from players in the rook-soph game.

  • robb

    And amateur dunkers would mean LBJ NEVER participating, if he was defeated by an amateur, he would force the NBA not air the contest and he would tell Nike to confiscate all the tapes. Forget about it.

  • Teddy-the-Bear

    What exactly is so bad about a dunk-in? We STILL GET THE ENTIRE CONTEST. Last year we voted in a player from 3 rookies. I’d rather see them dunking first before deciding.
    However, if the NBA wants to make this event better, take it back to how it was before: More participants, more rounds, and more dunks. The contest has gotten way too short now.

  • Teddy-the-Bear

    Hey Randy Brown, f*ck you and your trailer home.
    People like to complain for no reason whatsoever every time David Stern makes a change, just because everyone else complains.

  • Cizzo

    I guees I won’t be watching that ish again!!!!!!!

  • http://www.stonesthrow.com/madlib Michael NZ

    The whole texting thing is garbage. Aimed at 12-18 year olds, right? And more $$$ for the NBA. I still think it sucks how there is only 4 competitors? What happened to 8? Meh. Yet, despite all that, the dunk contest is still better than the travesty that is the Slo-Mo-Lazy-Skills-Comp. Also: lol @ Joel O’s.

  • Saku 39

    Don’t let the amateurs in – they would win. What would the NBA gain if Lebron got outclassed by Guy?

  • L

    Guy Dupuy might be the best contest dunker right now. It would be great to watch him compete against LBJ, Josh Smith, Shannon Brown, Nate…If you doubt me watch this link:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMz2r1xEVl4&feature=related

    L

  • L
  • Jalepino Sausage

    bull ish

  • http://www.stonesthrow.com/madlib Michael NZ

    Co sign Teddy-the-Bear @ 2.06. All the cools kids complain when Stern makes a change (without think it through)… and the followers, they, you know, follow.

  • Shadojoker

    My potential list of the Dunk-in Participants…

    Russell Westbrook
    Rudy Gay
    Demar Derozen
    Shannon Brown

    Now my list of the 3 participants are
    Nate Robinson
    Josh Smith
    Andre Iguodala (hopefully to avenge Nate’s thievery)

    I sadly doublt LBJ will participate..

  • http://idunkonthem.blogspot.com/ albie1kenobi

    this is in no way worse than the wheel of dunk. that was the worst thing that ever happened to the NBA, not counting Len Bias.

  • David

    Here’s how to make the dunk contest work again: retired dunk competition greats (e.g. Doc, Nique, Jordan, Webb) pick the 4 or 6 contestants each year. (who would say ‘no’ to dr j?) then you lose all the other gimmicks and you keep it really simple – dunk the ball and the judges score, miss and you get 0 for the round.

    There you go, NBA, make the dunk contest interesting again and we’ll forget about the stupid Nate vs Dwight fiasco last year.

  • http://www.stonesthrow.com/madlib Michael NZ

    What, no cupcakes?

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