For those of you who wasted your time watching the NBA Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday night, I feel bad.
I had not missed a dunk contest in years, but I agreed to miss this year's to see the movie "Valentine's Day" with my girlfriend. I felt this was the right thing to do after making her suffer through hours of the Outdoor Channel with me in recent weeks. It turned out the movie was better than I expected (thank God it was not a mushy chick-flick), and it was definitely worth missing the Slam Dunk Contest for. The 15 minutes that I wasted watching it on YouTube when I got home was not worth it.
This year's contest featured two first-year participants, Shannon Brown and Demar DeRozan, two-time champ Nate Robinson, and Gerald Wallace, the runner-up in the 2002 contest.
Despite fans wanting a larger field, the NBA continues to run with just four in the contest. Twenty years ago, there was a field of eight, consisting of high-flying dunkers such as Kenny Smith and Dominique Wilkins. Now, the contest has been trimmed in half after a slight decline in numbers over the years to six in the mid-1990s to four in 2002, Jason Richardson's first of two Slam Dunk Contest wins.
In the recent years, the Slam Dunk Contest field has seemed to be watered down, but in my eyes, none have been more watered down than this year. Nate Robinson is a proven dunker, and for a guy between 5'6" and 5'9", any dunk is impressive. But, besides Robinson, this year's dunkers were not very electric.
All four participants seemed to come out sluggish and unprepared. Perhaps that is because they spent their warm-up time chatting with celebrities such as Spike Lee and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and not preparing their razzle dazzle dunks. I can recall in years past when the dunkers were already soaked in sweat when they did their first dunk, but this year the guys were as dry as the Sonora Desert.
Not practicing prior to the contest resulted in many missed attempts, forcing two to four attempts, which brings me to a rule in the contest that I disagree with: each dunker being allowed two minutes to perform. These guys are professionals, and I feel that if they are not prepared for a dunk then for each attempt they should automatically lose a point. For instance, if I were a judge of the slam dunk contest and a player missed his first attempt, but nailed it on the second attempt and deserved a 10 I would knock it down to a nine just because he missed a previous attempt.
We all know Charles Barkley likes to complain, but he did it the entire contest and he had every right to with the Plain Jane dunks that Michael Jordan could do at age 47. At one point in the second part of the first round, 44-year old Kenny Smith and 1990 runner-up stated, "I'm gonna go in the back and get my sneakers on," as if to say he could still dunk better than the competitors. The 2008 contest champion, Dwight Howard, sat in his front row seat and shook his head with a smirk on his face as if he were thinking, "What the hell are these guys doing?" as if he was making fun of the dunkers and their performances. Maybe the league needs to step in and come up with dunks that the contestants must perform, kind of like in the game of HORSE, when one player must take the same shot from the same place as the person before he or she if they make it. Personally, I believe more props are needed, such as ladders, cars, or a row of folding chairs.
Nate Robinson beat Demar DeRozan in the final round, winning the fan voting 51 percent to 50 percent, and securing his third Slam Dunk Title. Robinson was asked by a reporter if he would be back next year to defend his title, but he stated, "No, no, no, no, no. I don't think I can bear that anymore."
Please, if not even Nate Robinson is going to be in it next year then just cancel it. If there are not going to be premier dunkers like Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, Vince Carter, Nate Robinson, or Lebron James, then I do not plan on watching it again. This year's contest was a complete waste of time. Some way, somehow, the NBA needs to figure out a way to get Kobe and Lebron in it for sure. At last year's contest, Lebron put his name in for this year, but withdrew it months later. I think the majority of basketball fans would agree that until the exclusive stars take part in the contest it will not be the same as when Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins participated.
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