They need to completely overhaul All Star Saturday. While I'm sure it would never happen for reasons such as stars not wanting to participate or teams fearing injury, wouldn't it be cool to have a two on two tournament. Durant and Westbrook vs Lebron and Wade, Harden and Howard vs Paul and Griffen, etc. If they want to keep the dunk contest maybe they could start with the rim at 11 feet and gradually raise it to see who has the greatest vertical rather than judging on style. Instead of the current three point contest have two players go head to head in around the world. It could be exciting if the two players are close coming down to the last shot. Almost anything would be better than what we currently are getting.
Needs more star power. The reason the dunk contest is becoming worse and worse every year is because the field is becoming more and more anonymous. Lebron Durant Blake Griffin Paul George Dwight Howard Deandre Jordan John Wall Russel Westbrook A dunk contest like that would bring things back to life while sticking with the original format. The fans should pick the top 8 and this contest should be mandatory for those voted in, as is the all-star game barring injury.
The problem has always been the same as this year was not any different. The contestants have been nobodies. If you did this format, and had Lebron vs Durant in a matchup, it would have been nuts.
The judges talked way too much...just hold up a card and move on. Way too slow developing the program. Overall the changes didn't help much to re-establish the event.
All you need is good players. The Nash/Amare, Howard, etc... year was great. The Kobe/McGrady/Francis/Carter year was great. Add some creativity too, for example, Drew Brees should have thrown a football alleyoop pass to someone this year. That's all it needs.
Street ballers vs. NBA in all categories. This would create a platform for new talent and be much more interesting to watch. And make it mandatory for guys like Lebron to compete
I think that's the problem though. I don't think the dunk contest should be just about doing "new" stuff, cause there is only so much you can do. The idea that you have to do something someone's never done before is what's lead to the past decade of gimmicks and to lame dunks like whatever that Shaq-lemore business meant to be. I'd rather see a well-executed dunk I've seen before than this crap. I really enjoyed John Wall's final dunk. Also Lillard (I still don't know how Ross beat him, tbh). I enjoy watching old dunk contests even though it's just stuff I've seen a million times before. But maybe that's just me.
not sure if it was mentioned yet but NBA.com had the dunk of the night as George's between the legs 360 and not Wall's dunk -- yet Wall was crowned the champ? complete garbage that whole thing I wont be watching anymore Sat night until they just go back to how it was
John Wall's dunk was so good because he came out, pumped up the crowd, and did his dunk in one go, and then once it was done, he was hyped up and danced around. If everybody did that, the dunk contest would be awesome. Everybody else came out and just casually dunked, and then sat down.
Don't know about the “we need stars to participate or else it sucks“ argument...D-League contest is full of unknown guys but still great entertainment and awesome dunks. It's more about the dunk itself rather than the person doing it. They should go back to the old format, pick the potentially best dunkers and let them dunk without too much gimmicks. Nice bonus if stars are in it, but shouldn't be the most important thing.
