Poor Stephon Castle. While his first two jams in Saturday’s Dunk Contest left a bit to be desired, his second two were spectacular. Dunk No. 3 was one we’ve never seen before, as Castle caught the ball through the net and went between the legs. His final attempt, his lone 50 of the night, was a 180-degree spin behind-the-back dunk with his left hand. In a normal year, he easily could have won the whole thing. Instead, he fell to perhaps the Dunk Contest GOAT.
Mac McClung won his third consecutive Dunk Contest on Saturday. All four of his dunks were 50s. Of 12 total dunks in his three contests, eight have been scored as 50s. Whether or not he has saved the Dunk Contest is a matter of debate. What isn’t is that the contest, in its current incarnation, is not a challenge for him. He isn’t competing against the field. He’s competing against himself.
While we’d all love to see McClung compete for a fourth time next season, it’s worth exploring ways the NBA could innovate for the sake of decreasing predictability. McClung needs a challenge, so let’s consider a few ways the NBA could create one.
1. Mac vs. teams
One persistent problem dunkers have in contests like this is volume. Coming up with four ambitious yet achievable dunks is difficult. These are NBA players who have to conceive of these dunks and then master them during their season. We’d likely get better dunks if the dunkers only had to prepare a few of them.
So here’s the pitch: McClung will continue to participate individually. His three challengers, however, will be teams of two. Each of those two dunkers would take one dunk per round, meaning they would only need to dunk twice as opposed to four times. The NBA could even have some fun with team compositions. Here are a few possible ideas:
- Amen and Ausar Thompson attempting to win together as twins.
- Castle returning next season with his “Area 51” teammate (Victor Wembanyama).
- Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine uniting after their legendary dunk-off in 2016.
- Obi Toppin and Anfernee Simons as the last two non-McClung winners.
- LeBron James and Bronny James as a father-son team.
These are, obviously, extremely ambitious pairings. James has turned the contest down for more than two decades, he almost certainly isn’t changing his mind now. But the concept of finding thematically appealing duos to try to unseat McClung together could be television gold.
2. Substantially increase the prize money
Ja Morant hinted at possibly competing next season on Twitter as he watched McClung win his third trophy Saturday. Giannis Antetokounmpo replied by saying he’d “do it with you” if Morant indeed participated. Obviously, Morant and Antetokounmpo would be ideal competitors for McClung. But we’ve been doing this dance for years. Stars hint at participating all of the time. James even once made a “preliminary” announcement that he would participate in 2010 contest before backing out. Stars, for the most part, just don’t seem inclined to participate anymore. McClung’s dominance likely exacerbates that problem. Who wants to lose to the G Leaguer?
Money tends to solve problems in the NBA. Just look at how hard even the best players in the league have tried to win the NBA Cup’s prize money. At present, the prize for the Dunk Contest is only $105,000, according to USA Today. That may not move the Morants and Antetokounmpos of the world, but would $1 million? Maybe. If nothing else, it would create more hype around the event, almost serving as a dunk bounty. “Unseat the greatest dunker in the world for $1 million” would be quite the promotional tool.
Remember, it’s not a certainty that McClung even returns. “This might be it for me, we’ll see,” McClung said on the broadcast. “If they want me back bad enough, I’ll think about it.” After an otherwise lackluster All-Star Saturday, the league probably should want McClung back badly enough to put a seven-figure prize on the table.
3. Bring back the wheel
One of the topics of debate following McClung’s win on Saturday is where he stands on the all-time Dunk Contest pantheon. Well, what if we could make him prove it by having him compete against previous winners? Well, the Dunk Contest actually has had a mechanism in the past that would have allowed that. In 2002, the league introduced the wheel.
The concept was simple. A dunker would spin the wheel and land on a category. They would then need to replicate the dunk chosen. The wheel obviously didn’t last, but it would create an interesting handicap for McClung on two fronts:
- McClung would no longer have originality on his side. He’d have to beat the best all-time dunkers by outdoing them with their own dunks. He did this on Saturday by improving upon Blake Griffin’s Kia dunk. This way, we could see him challenge Michael Jordan, Vince Carter and any other legendary dunkers the league deems appropriate.
- If McClung is bound to the wheel but the other dunkers are free to use whatever dunk they want, he would be unable to actually prepare. He’d be figuring out what dunks he had to try on the spot, testing just how dynamic he is on the fly.
The obvious downside to this approach would be that McClung’s originality is one of his selling points. We want to see totally original dunks. Perhaps that means the wheel could be used once per round, or just once overall. At this point, McClung’s true competitors aren’t the dunkers he shares the floor with, but the ones who came before him. Incorporating them into a contest that includes him would, if nothing else, give us one of the most nostalgic Dunk Contests of all time.
