Dunk Contest = Fail

Like most NBA fans, I’m always looking forward to the Slam Dunk Contest.  There’s always that possibility that we might see something truly original, something we have never seen before, something that gets us out of our seats.  The NBA smartly plays on our anticipation by leaving the contest to the end of the night, giving us time to imagine what we might see.  Of course, when you build to a crescendo and that crescendo falls flat like it did last night, there is a price to pay.

First off, you can’t blame the NBA for what happened last night.  They picked the short showman (Nate Robinson), Laker leaper (Shannon Brown), and Gerald Wallace, and Demar DeRozan won the inaugural dunk-in to gain his admittance.  The dunk-in was a nice touch…giving 2 relative unknowns a shot at the big stage.  All four of those guys are extremely capable leapers and could have shown us something extraordinary last night.  It’s not the NBA’s fault…they picked solid guys.  The athleticism was not missing, but what was missing was a little creativity.

Here are a few ideas for the NBA to consider:

• Assign a “dunk specialist” to each participant who spends the week leading up to the contest brainstorming for dunk ideas.  Some of the guys like Nate Robinson surely prepare for this thing year-round, but I doubt Phil Jackson is encouraging Shannon Brown to come up with new dunk ideas in practice.  A creativity consultant would help.
• Don’t pick the same guy more than twice.  Nate Robinson was fun the first time, okay (IMO) the second time, and rather stale last night.  Novelty counts more than anything in the dunk contest so you need new blood.
• Use fan voting for every dunk.  DeRozan’s dunk was perfect?   Yeah, okay.  It was the best dunk of the night, but are you really ready to put that on the level of Vince Carter or Dominique Wilkins’ dunks?  Let the fans rank the dunks from 1-10 and maybe use the legends as dunk specialists.

Conclusion: worst. dunk. contest. ever.

Oh, and, hey Lebron, bawk bawk bawk bawk!