J.D. Crabtree: Dear 2022 Cooks,
NBA All-Star weekend has elevated itself to the top tier of major sports celebrity gatherings.
This is a stretch but it's providing more entertainment value this year for its niche than Olympic enthusiasts, the pinnacle of gathering a sport's crème de la crème (yes, I'm aware of why these ratings took a hit). Kudos to the association for getting the weekend to the right amount of pageantry and play.
But one event, which helped it rise to this point, has appeared to have lost its flair. The Dunk Contest. The 2022 competition was a flop. The performance was poor, social media roasted it, and the actual in-game commentators Sunday night couldn't stop poking fun at how each game dunk was more entertaining.
One glaring issue: Bigger names are sitting out. It's always about star power this weekend, so it’s hard to go from actual all-stars matching each other in the 3 point contest to watching a bunch of guys who most casual fans would have to Google take three tries to finish dunks we’ve seen before.
Which leads to another point, there's only so many combinations and acrobatics remaining, right?
- Limb-focused slams: between the legs, behind the back, etc.
- Jumping very high: birthday candle blowouts, arm through the rim, etc.
- Scaling humans and props: Blake Griffin over a car, Nate Robinson over a human, etc.
- Spins in air- Passes from 'teammates'
- Foul line and distance dunks
- Even dunking two balls at once
What else can wow judges and viewers, I am not sure. Later I'm going to ask you about the state of dunk in live competitions at all levels, but let's focus on this event for now.
Last anecdote. The Home Run Derby is the cross-sport equivalent, and its format has lasting power. It is a race to quantity not quality, and you can roll that out every year with matched enthusiasm. I'm an average baseball fan and when a couple guys start bombing, I have just as much fun as the year prior.
A couple questions for you:
Why are the stars at this event not participating and losing interest at a rapid rate?
Are we seeing the end of the dunk contest's allure? Are we all jaded dunk-watching elitists?
Carter Pearson: I think the Sunk Contest (see what I did there?) has a problem of expectations.
Every couple of years, it’s amazing, but in between that it stinks. To your point, the lack of star power is elemental here. We don’t need (deserve! Jordan vs. ‘Nique every year, but it has popped up some fun contests in the interim. My remedy for fixing it is three-fold.
1) Make the prize $1 million bucks. Sprite will pay it. I promise.
2) Limit participants to the Rising Stars game. With the way young players are progressing, that means this year would’ve been Anthony Edward’s, Jalen Green, Kuminga (a GREAT in-game dunker) and maybe Scottie Barnes. Last year, Ja is in it. And maybe Zion if he could walk.
This also gets around the issue of $1 million not being that much money to a star on a max contract. Kuminga only makes 6 mill a year. He’d like an extra mill please.
3) Choose a “Designated Passer” from the Rising Stars game. This year, LaMelo is the designated “Alley Oopee” for the contest. I think he could probably pull off a side of the backboard pass if asked.
I do think some of the “dunk contest sucks” vibes are our fault. Speaking personally, I love basketball but have not watched many full games this year. I read about it, listen to podcasts and watch tons of highlights or condensed games. So, I’m already only interacting with the really fun parts of basketball.
The Dunk Contest should be awesome as the purest distillation of that, but you have guys doing 360s in games and I can see that on my phone immediately after it happens. At any level. I think we, as a basketball watching populace, have highlight fatigue.
So, in addition to the mechanical elements outlined above I think everyone just needs to bring some wonder back to their viewing experience. Don’t rewatch Vince Carter from 2000 every year before the event. Just enjoy some really athletic people doing spins and putting a tiny ball in a hoop. I promise everything that happened on Saturday was really cool, we’re all just jaded.
What do you think? Any other big suggestions to change the #vibes around the contest?
JD: Lots to dunk on here.
First responses to your remedy:
1) Make the prize $1 million bucks.
The top of the list for me, which comes with a sad realization. $1 million is probably too low to get Giannis or Ja out there. Think about that, the dunk contest is already below Ja Morant's professional standards! Maybe we bump the number up more, but then it creeps up to gross sums that get controversial.
2) Limit participants to the Rising Stars game.
I'm out on this. It already feels like a Rising Stars crowd. The casual fan still isn't going to know Kuminga or three other guys on rookie contracts. I understand the structure but it completely loses the star power which made the event special in the 90s and 2000s.
3) Choose a “Designated Passer” from the Rising Stars game.
My second place because we have to change something to keep this alive. My variation is each round there is a theme, so one would be the designated passer. Another one would be backboard-related or from a certain angle. The final would be dressing up as your favorite Bored Ape or Cryptopunk NFT as the entire audience tries to scan your moving QR code for a free bet on DraftKings.
Honestly my biggest suggestion is for the league to move its emphasis. I'm drawing a hard line, we are past the glory days of the dunk contest. Similar to the And 1 mixtape tour, it had its time and place and novelty. We have probably seen most of the dunks due to the cap on gravity and human physics. We need to move the three point contest into a more competitive format, and the focal point of that night. Either that or have a 1-on-1 game/tournament which would bring in a whole new bag of tricks and passionate predictions prior to this event. Trae Young vs Wiggins in a first to 11? I'm watching and gambling on it.
In-game dunking is a separate discussion. The league has always been the peak of athleticism, but it feels like we keep creeping towards more impressive action dunks. The lob (and lob spot) have made every attack to the basket a potential crowd pleaser. Posters have at minimum stayed on pace since the Vince era. And we are all just dunking more except you and me. Look at this cool graph:
Look out below Cooks! Am I right?
What are your thoughts on the live dunk? Is it just as exciting for you? With its uptick has it also lost its shine?
CP: Google suggests that I should reply to the with “I concur.” I could leave it at that, but I won’t.
Agree 1 on 1 is better. My only thing there is you’re way less likely to get the best to participate for fear of injury (or looking bad). It’s really easy to twist an ankle in 1 on 1. You’re rebounding, taking it out, hard cutting back to the hoop, etc. Also, not sure I see any star’s pride allowing them to play. Is LeBron gonna take a shot that Steph makes 6 straight 3s to beat him? Nope.
On the live dunk — I think how people consume basketball has changed. This goes back to #highlightculture and NFTs being monetized. The youth (also including me until like January) doesn’t watch full games.
So, the live dunk reaps gains and losses from this culture. If you can watch every highlight from the night before, why watch a full game? Positive for dunk consumption.
But, if the highlights are preceded by a tweet like “RIP Jusef Nurkic” or “Ja Morant Obliterates Christian Wood” then the surprise is kinda gone. Part of the magic of a dunk is that it’s surprising. A guy is far away from the basket and then, voila, the ball is being thrown down at the floor.
(Side note: this is why I like watching Kuminga. That dude apparates to the rim.)
So, yeah, I think highlights are ruining our appreciation of basketball and people should watch whole games. Does this make me an old man?
JD: "RIP Jusef Nurkic" skyrocketed to the top of this edition's title choices. But I've counted about 10 reasons why we shouldn't move forward with it.
Yes, you are an old man now. We always knew the attention economy would take away from the two greatest art forms: novels and full basketball games. It is a matter of time until the NBA/the networks roll out their version of Red Zone for basketball. Just Nurkic and other rim protectors getting posterized for hours on end. This is our future, insert old man yelling at cloud meme.
So the digital dunk is ruining society. The dunk contest is on the verge of being cancelled. It sounds like the only dunk left is the in-game in-person dunk. There it is people. Similar to sitting at the chef's table versus ordering Uber Eats, if you want to taste the finer things in life you have to get out the door and get into the bleachers.
Let the dunk come to you.
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