It was definitely a highly anticipated event, more so with the underwhelming performance in 2012 which featured virtual unknown Jeremy Evans as the winner. This year he was back with 5 others who was supposedly going to put on one of the best shows in dunk contest history. Gerald Green, former dunk champion and James White were one of the top picks to win, considering their impressive dunk showdowns in recent history and this was supposed to be the event that settled who was the best. Out of the three repping the east, one of them was rookie Terrence Ross, who threw down a few impressive ones during the season but had limited playing time.
In the most anti-climatic way possible, Green and White both did not make it though to the finals and Terence Ross did instead. To be fair, Green's first dunk had me jumping out of my seat. A vicious reverse jam after a self-oop off the side of the board. AMAZING. Finesse, style, swagger, it was all there. What a way to start off.
To put things in perspective, the only time I got excited after that was Ross's first dunk in the finals, paying tribute to the great Vince Carter by putting on his jersey and throwing down an eye-popping dunk with incredible force.
Besides those, man was it lame. Evans jumping over a portrait of himself jumping over a portrait of himself jumping over a portr....wait a minute. You'll get it when you see the video. Bledsoe had a monster second dunk which I really thought should have out him through to the finals. He missed it by one point.
Gerald Green, who had such a successful first dunk, got everyone excited by cutting off the net on the rim for some kind of double dunk, which he failed to do and to make things worse, he managed to compete it after the time was up. But Charles Barkley was totally right in saying that even if he did it it would still not be quite as impressive. It just wasn't a power dunk that would have got people excited.
James White wasn't even in the conversation, as he failed time and again to complete his second dunk. Maybe he's just getting old. It was just sad to see him all tired and panting and slightly sweating as time expired. Shaq made a good point/joke about White's playing time and fitness though.
Faried had two good dunks but frankly, his in-game dunks are waaaaay better, impressive and awesome.
To end things off, Ross jumped over a boy, went between the legs and threw it down. Meh.
There just wasn't the anticipation, excitement and rapturous audience reaction that made previous good dunk contests.
However, the dunk contest is not yet dead. There is still much hope for the future, and hopefully next year is gonna better just like how this year was better than last year. I definitely wanna see Bledsoe and Ross back in, and REALLY HOPING that DeAndre Jordan makes his tweet official and joins the dunk contest next year, which really should be referring to that.
Most importantly, everyone please follow Skip Bayless and #GetLebronToDunk.
Please.
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