Standing tall at 5'9", Nate "the Great" Robinson, also known as Krypto-Nate--won his third dunk contest in the Sprite Slam Dunk competition this past weekend in Dallas.
Krypto-Nate is the only player to have ever won the dunk contest thrice; but is there really any pride in winning the dunk contest anymore?
The years of real competition--with Jordan, Wilkins, Dr. J, Carter have passed. Now the competitors are a toss up every year as to who actually wants to participate. Nate did not play much the first half and had less than a dozen dunks during the season; but of course he makes it because he is a two-time champ.
Demark DeRozan wins the Dunk-in preliminary round to advance to the Sprite Dunk contest with Nate, Wallace, and Brown. DeRozan passed into the next round and put up some pretty solid dunks (at least the judges thought so), and ended up losing by 2% of the fan votes!
It's amazing how close the competition actually was between the two contestants--however the contest has had a dramatic drop. What happened to the spin the wheel dunk contest? What happened to the excess creativity? I don't want to see another tomahawk or another jumping-over-a-teammate dunk.
Robinson won his three competitions not because the dunks were spectacular but because he's 5'9", a fan favorite, and he has swagger. When it comes down to it--he doesn't get about the rim as high as many people in the league.
All of the participants barely got above the rim, which is extremely disappointing for me to watch. Creativity can be utilized when you have a grand leap; LeBron's dunks are frightening because he gets more than a foot above the rim at times.
The dunks this past competition were simply not impressive because they barely got 6 or 7 inches above the rim.
Players need to consider participating in the contest for the sake of the fans. Obviously, being a contestant is not a goal for them because they want to enjoy the weekend--but when you have repetitive dunks every year, please do something about it.
I truly believe that the NBA should bring back the wheel for the dunkers to spin. If you want to add an element to the dunk contest--add this, not another mini dunk contest.
We'll see what happens next year--until then, I think Nate is going to win a couple more dunk contests because let's face... no one else who could win would want to participate.
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