The NBA will hold its Slam Dunk championship on Saturday night during
All-Star weekend. That's the first mistake. The second is the list of
competitors. What, were Vitaly Potapenko, Rasho Nesterovic and Luc Longley
otherwise engaged?
|  | | Spud Webb played for a number of NBA teams, but was famous for his slam dunk competition exploits. |
Let's face it, there is only one even intriguing event over the weekend
and it sure isn't the game. Can you even remember an All-Star Game from the
past decade? Sure, we recall episodes, such as Kobe Bryant trying to waive
off Karl Malone, or the Isiah Thomas-led freezeout of Michael Jordan. But
other than that, the game disappears from our addled brains in a hurry.
But the dunk contest is the opposite. Quick, two words: Spud Webb. He
had a long, if uneventful playing career in the NBA, but his legacy already
is secure: Slam Dunk champion in 1986.
Two more words: Dee Brown. He will be
forever remembered for one memorable dunk, when he pumped up his sneakers and
then went into the air for a dunk with his arm shielding his eyes. He won the
1991 dunk contest in Charlotte.
"It can be a big-time recognition thing," Brown says. "I know it was
for me. The guy who wins it could be a household name. I mean, for me, I
already was playing as a rookie for the Boston Celtics. We had Bird, McHale,
Chief (Robert Parish) and all it did was enhance my name."
That's because people remember the dunk contest. Other than three days
of unrelenting rain, the most vivid memory of last year's All-Star Game was
Vince Carter's electrifying performance in the dunk competition. Carter
already was a star, but he took off like a meteor after that.
Who can forget Michael Jordan's performance in Chicago, during what
turned out to be MJ Appreciation Weekend? Cedric Ceballos may be best known
for an ill advised boat trip, but he also authored one of the more innovative
dunks in the competition, donning a blindfold and going coast-to-coast to win
the event in Orlando in 1992. Terence Stansbury's place in Slam Dunk history
is also secure with his dunk over a chair in Indianapolis before a hometown
crowd at Market Square Arena in 1985. (He didn't win, however, and the league
has since disallowed props.)
The dunk is the signature move of this generation of basketball players.
They learn how to dunk before they learn how to box out and rotate, which is
a topic for another day. What logo did the NBA select for its new
developmental league? A player dunking. The guess here is that if you went to
the Vince Carter film vault at ESPN, you'd see 95 percent dunks.
It's the event the fans and players want to see. They don't get involved
in the 3-point shot contest with nearly the same energy and
attentiveness. They certainly don't care a whit about another lame Saturday
product: the rookie game which is only 50 percent rookies.
But the dunk contest is different and everyone knows it.
"It's like the home run derby contest in baseball," Brown said.
"That's all people remember from that, too. It's the most exciting part of
the whole thing. The players all stay around to see that. Most of them don't
even stick around to see the game."
So why put the most exciting, crowd-pleasing, player-involved event on
cable television on a Saturday night? It's ludicrous. It should be the focus
of the weekend because All-Star weekend is first and foremost about
entertainment and marketing with basketball somewhere down the list along
with transportation.
But to do that, the players also have to cooperate and that gets to the
NBA's second boo-boo. This weekend, it's not merely a boo boo -- it's a
whopper of a blunder. The field for the slam dunk contest almost looks as if
it has been assembled by Vince McMahon to ensure that no one watches it.
Here is the distinguished list of competitors: Jonathan Bender, Baron
Davis, Corey Maggette, Desmond Mason, DeShawn Stevenson and Stromile Swift.
You have three rookies, two of whom almost never play, and three second-year
players, two of whom have found playing time to be a challenge. Davis is the
only one of the six who has anything close to a meaningful role on his team.
"No one even knows who Stromile Swift is," Brown said. "He's in
Vancouver, so no one sees him. And he doesn't even play." The same could be
said for Bender (Indiana), Stevenson (Utah), Maggette (Clippers) and Mason
(Seattle.)
What on earth is David Stern thinking? There should have been a
not-so-subtle directive sent to Carter, Tracy McGrady, Steve Francis and Kobe
Bryant that their attendance and participation in the slam dunk competition
is, uh, encouraged. Can you imagine the anticipation leading into Saturday
night with those four competing? Three of them did so last year (Kobe did
not) and it merely produced the most magical moment of the weekend.
But Carter has decided not to defend (he is hurting, so it would
probably be stupid) while the others have declined to participate. Maybe they
feel that being identified as a dunker hurts their image, although, in
Carter's case, that is his image, even if it's only a part of his game. Maybe
they feel the dunk contest is suddenly beneath them. But we have a dramatic
dropoff in known, identifiable talent this year; the new guys could well be
good dunkers, but the public shouldn't have to go in with curious faces and a
scorecard. The skinny is that the hosts had trouble even compiling a field.
And what do we have: someone named Paul McPherson, who, we think is in the
league, is upset that he wasn't included.
Once upon a time, guys like Jordan, Clyde Drexler, Dominique Wilkins,
Julius Erving, Darrell Griffith and Larry Nance all competed in the same
contest. Jordan, for instance, won the event twice. He participated in three
dunk contests. Kobe called it quits after winning the 1997 event. The NBA
then pulled the plug on the event before resuscitating it last year at
Oakland.
It's on the docket again this year, but at the wrong time and with the
wrong people. Other than that, it should be a great.
Peter May of the Boston Globe is a regular contributor to ESPN.com
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