How to Fix a Broken Contest

So I'm assuming you have seen the dunks from last night's slam dunk contest at this point. And I'm also sure you are really only hearing any buzz over one of them: Dwight Howard's sticker dunk. I mean, Nate Robinson and Gerald Green had some good dunks, but Robinson is just a sideshow and Green, while a great showman, is only doing dunks that we have seen before. You wonder why the contest has been dying? The contestants have been more than content to merely propagate the mythos of the 80's dunk contests, doing throwbacks to the dunks they saw as kids on TV, instead of making their own mythos. Throwback dunks have no place in the contest, unless you add something truly novel. Period. Which is why Dwight Howard's dunk made me sad. Not because of the dunk itself, but because of the scoring from the judges. They gave it a 43 out of 50. Gerald Green's uncreative, dunk over a table dunk in the finals got a 50. It was a travesty, much in the same way that last year Amare couldn't even get out of the first round of the contest. The judges do not seem to appreciate true creativity, or dunks by big men. In fact, Howard would have had an even more show-stopping dunk, but the NBA did not allow him to raise the rim to 12 feet to do it. This why the contest is dead on the vine. The NBA seems content to use the contest as a venue to relive the glory days where Jordan and Dominique went at each other

Now, as always, I am not merely going to offer criticism; I will now prescribe a remedy to what ails the dunk contest. In fact, I'll give you two avenues.

1. GET THE STARS BACK: Kobe won't do it. Vince won't do it. LeBron won't do it. T-Mac won't do it. Now, that would be a foursome that the viewers would want to see, wouldn't it? No disrespect, but the past few years the contestants have been less than stellar. I mean, the recent winners have been Green, Robinson, Josh Smith, and Fred Jones. There hasn't been a truly star studded dunk contest since 2000, when Vince Carter, T-Mac, and Stevie Franchise all threw down. The problem of course is not that the stars are failing to be invited. They just do not want to participate, and I can see a number of reasons why. One obvious one is a risk of injury. The high level stars make a lot of endorsement dollars, which are highly dependent upon performance, and missing games due to a dunk contest injury would be detrimental to one's checkbook. Also, and I think more importantly, the stars do not want to be embarrassed. What if Kobe or LeBron had participated last year, and had been defeated by Nate Robinson? They would have heard about it all year long. Or even without Robinson, I am sure that a Kobe or a LeBron or a T-Mac would not want to lose to each other either. Therefore, to draw the stars back in a couple of things need to change. First, the money needs to go up. This might not solve the problem on its own, but it would help. Also, the dunk contest would need to be comprised of only stars, to avoid the embarrassment factor. No more short sideshows and no more first and second year player's whose only talent is dunking. Even if you are unable to get all superstars, you could still get a group of superstars and notable players. Like, lets say for example the dunk line up was LeBron, Dwight Howard, T-Mac, and Jason Richardson. That would be pretty dang solid. Or Vince, Kobe, Amare, and Andre Igoudala. Again, pretty solid, much more so than the youngsters that have been trotted out recently.

2. NO STARS? THEN GET THE BEST: Since the NBA's secondary agenda in the dunk contest now seems to be hyping up the next generation of not quite yet superstars, they have been missing out on the best dunkers in the NBA. And I am not just talking about the stars discussed previously. Igoudala should be in it every year. Same for Josh Smith. Ryan Hollins of the Bobcats should also get major consideration. (Don't believe me? YouTube him.) Ricky Davis of the Timberwolves is also an elite dunker. Dwight Howard solidified himself as one last night. I think a good solution would be for each team to submit one dunker from their team to the league for consideration It would be awesome to see if other teams have dunking gems like Hollins hiding on their benches. I suppose my point is, if you are not going to have players everyone recognizes, at least have the most exciting nobodies you can get.

Now, there is one final thing that would improve the contest. Someone needs to push the envelope. Dwight Howard is trying. He came out with probably the most innovative dunk in the contest since Vince was in it. But someone needs to really take a chance, and there is one frontier that if broken in the dunk contest, would truly bring down the house. And that my friends, would be the 720. It would be something never seen before in the dunk contest, as it has only come close to being performed in street ball exhibitions I don't care what you need to do to get ready, NBA dunkers, just do it. Hire a figure skating coach. Practice in an anti-gravity room. Do whatever it takes. Especially to those anonymous guys on team's benches who would otherwise have no shot at the contest, I GUARANTEE if you told the people in charge of the dunk contest that you could do a 720, you would be in no questions asked. This is the one sure way to make the contest great again. I mean, there has already been a great deal of buzz over Howard's dunk, just imagine if someone stuck a 720. They would be all over YouTube, all over ESPN, they would probably even make the talk show circuit or get an endorsement out of it. So here is to the hope that next year will be a better contest, with better dunkers and better dunks, and hopefully judges that can truly appreciate a great dunk when they see one.