The NBA Dunk Contest used to be a special showcase of the pinnacles of basketball athleticism: Michael Jordan’s free-throw line dunk in 1987 and Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine’s legendary duel in 2016 are the most famous examples.
It has now fallen into stagnation.
To fix the dunk contest at its roots, we must first understand its power. After watching an ordinary basketball game, we first ask: Who won? And, by how much? Only after we wonder ‘if the victory was pretty.’ In the dunk contest, however, this tension between the appreciation of aesthetics and victory is flipped — we prioritize artistry over the ‘victor.’ Sure, the contest has a ‘victor,’ but it is clear the event is judged with little scrutiny — perfect scores of 50 are doled out like lollipops. The incompetent celebrity ‘judges’ reveal the true purpose of the contest, as was demonstrated in 2016. When two contestants do truly innovative, beautiful, impossibly skillful dunks, scores become irrelevant, and the contest becomes a pure celebration of basketball as an art form. We become judges, called upon to evaluate the power of what moves us, to pay real attention to real attempts at a novel, creative movement. The great dunk contests meet this expectation of artistry.
But what happens when the contestants are unable to meet it?
I say this with respect to the impossible task given to the four unlucky NBA players chosen each year. The level to perform truly innovative dunks is just too high for NBA players. Dunking at the highest level is, as of late, a specialized skill. This wasn’t always the case. Dunking used to be the wild west and, with the open plains of innovation, the bar had not been set. But Jordan’s religious free-throw line dunk can only be done once and, when such a dunk moves us, it becomes framed as a beautiful act. Our mouths hang agape. If repeated, however, it becomes uninteresting and derivative. We become desensitized to what was once jaw-dropping. In 2026, it seems that every player’s dunks are a trope. 360 windmills and powerful between-the-legs dunks elicit yawns because they’ve already been done before. Mediocre, uninspired dunks bore us. They are an unintentional insult to the history of basketball. Once in a blue moon, contestants like Aaron Gordon or Zach LaVine may fit into the (very narrow) diagram of NBA players who can compete at the level of pro dunkers. They are the rare exception.
If there is no such contestant, the contest becomes filled with dunkslop.
As more dunks become cringe, the dunk contest becomes a shell of itself. My remedy is this: Even if NBA players cannot compete with them, professional dunkers should be allowed to compete in the dunk contest. If this happens, the contest will be both permanently altered and revitalized.
With dunking artists under the spotlight, All-Star weekend can become a celebration of basketball once again, and a use of the NBA platform to benefit the game itself.
