NBA Slam Dunk Contest: the Contestants and probable Winner
Dominique Wilkins, The Human Highlight Film, is one of the all-time great dunkersLast Thursday, the NBA released the names of the participants for the upcoming dunk contest on Saturday night in Toronto. Despite struggles in recent years to have a fully entertaining contest, the dunk contest is still the marquee event during All-Star Saturday night and this year has some potential to be a memorable event.As the week goes on, I will be looking at each of the events that comprise All-Star Saturday, gauging what I think will be interesting about each and picking who I think will be the winner.With defending champ, Zach LaVine of the Minnesota Timberwolves back for a second year, some may think that he will cake walk to victory again, but his challengers, Denver Nuggets’ Will Barton, Detroit's Andre Drummond, and Orlando Magic's Aaron Gordon are some high fliers themselves who could challenge one of the best dunk contest contestants running right now. Now, enough with the talk, let's start meeting the guys.
#1 Zach LaVine
Vitals: 6’ 5”, 190 pounds, 29 dunks in 2015-16
We start with the defending champ, an athlete seemingly made to fly through an arena with all eyes on him and throw down spectacular dunks. Usually, shooting guards or small forwards are the ideal players to dominate dunk contest, think Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, Dominique Wilkins or Jason Richardson.
They are tall enough to do any trick in the book, but not so tall that they are going to get to the rim too fast, and LaVine is cut from the same cloth as these predecessors. LaVine showed last season that he can do all the tricks, and more importantly, he rarely misses while attempting even the hardest ones.
Throw up a Youtube video of him from last year’s dunk contest or even the Seattle Pro-Am from the summer of 2014 and you will see what I mean. Sometimes it seems as though LaVine is still rising when he throws down a dunk, a feat only reserved for the bounciest of players. It will be interesting to see what tricks he comes up with this season after we saw some great ones last season, but no doubt, he will not disappoint.