The 2026 NBA Slam Dunk contest wasn’t just bad — it was pathetic. The decline of the dunk contest has been well documented, but Saturday night was the competition’s rock bottom. Serving as proof the NBA needs to cancel the event and replace it with something else, rather than watch it fade into irrelevancy like Chris Paul.
Every single facet of the event sucked. Keshad Johnson of the Miami Heat won with a dunk that barely would have made it out of the first round a decade ago. Even the NBA’s hype tweet felt sad and forced.
Still, this was somehow the best dunk of the night. The only other remotely impressive thing was Johnson jumping over rapper E-40 — which was fine, but not mind-blowing. E-40 is 6’1, and this is a competition where dunkers have jumped over Shaq, a car, and hell, Aaron Gordon went over the Magic mascot and under both legs, while the mascot stood on a hoverboard.
While Johnson was the best of a horrible group, he should have been disqualified for his dancing. Before every dunk, during every dunk, after every dunk, there was this pathetic, manufactured dancing that Johnson did that seemed to be less about any genuine enthusiasm about the event, and more because someone told him it would be good for his brand if he became the “dancing guy” during the dunk contest.
We also had Jase Richardson almost knock himself out.
And this from Jaxson Hayes, which would have been a mediocre in-game dunk.
The only thing worse than the dunks was the judging. The NBA used a panel of notable dunkers: Dominique Wilkins, Dwight Howard, Corey Maggette, and Brent Barry — a good group, except they were given an absolutely nonsensical rubric that nobody could score less than a 40, out of 50. It was clearly only put in place to make sure nobody’s feelings were hurt, because getting to say “I scored 42 out of 50” sounds a lot better than “2 out of 10.”
If the scoring format wasn’t bad enough we had Dwight Howard handing out 50s like candy for the crappiest dunks imaginable. Don’t believe me? This was a 50 in Howard’s book.
A windmill jam from barely past the dotted line that Johnson couldn’t even manage to dribble for. At least he did his dancing afterwards.
There’s a simple reality that basketball has changed. In the 90s and 00s kids would practice dunks like Michael Jordan or Vince Carter on Nerf hoops attached to their bedroom doors — now they’re trying to shoot from deep like Steph. Interior defense is more refined, giving less obvious lanes to the rim for in-game dunks. Euro steps, step-throughs, and floaters are now the in-lane currency of the NBA, rather than trying to power through everyone with dunks. There’s ample reason why dunking isn’t as flashy as it once was, but there is no excuse for the absence of creativity. There have never been more resources to imagine new dunks or learn from the greats of the past to push the limits of athleticism. Instead, we’ve seen unbelievable regression as players struggle to do anything past the most rudimentary of dunks. There’s no pride, no desire to put on a show — and the NBA is shielding feelings by making sure nobody can score lower than a 40. The stars of the past would never.
There’s an entire generation of basketball fans who are too young to remember how great the NBA Slam Dunk Contest was. Relegated to watching retrospectives on YouTube, they’ll never understand the excitement that led up to seeing some of the biggest stars in basketball show off their athleticism, creativity, and pride in being known as the best dunker in the NBA. There was palpable excitement as we wondered how players could go bigger and better. That’s gone now.
Nobody wanted Old Yeller to die. He was a beloved member of the family until that old dog got rabies and was destined to descent to madness. The NBA Slam Dunk Contest is past that point, and we need to save its legacy from itself by killing the contest all together and inventing something else — because this is too sad to continue in its current form.
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