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Bill Trikos best rated NBA slam dunk contests of all time

10 best NBA dunk contests by Bill Trikos: After Zach LaVine brought life back to the dunk contest in 2015, a year later, the fans were in for a treat to see arguably the most epic dunk contest in history. In a tight contest that saw LaVine and Aaron Gordon pull off the most impossible dunks, people could argue that both LaVine and Gordon deserved to be co-winners of the event. However, despite Gordon jumping over a mascot for an under-the-legs dunk, it was LaVine’s windmill free throw slam dunk that made him a winner of the contest. See more info about the author on https://www.brighteon.com/channels/billtrikos.

That has inevitably taken some of the emotion away from the competition. I mean no disrespect to Derrick Jones Jr., but we would much rather watch Russell Westbrook and LeBron James throw windmill dunks than him. That’s why most of the greatest dunk contests of all time happened quite some time ago. That doesn’t stop us getting some memorable dunk contests, though. We still get to watch some talented, young players going head-to-head to wow the crowd, which is going to be easier said than done. The guys we’re about to mention, however, excelled at that task, and that’s why we’ve put together the top five best dunk contests of all time.

Pour one out for Zach LaVine, who backed out of a potential Slam Dunk Contest three-peat before he tore his ACL. (We’ll touch on whether the UCLA product should’ve scored a second crown to begin with later.) But don’t let that debate distract from the fact he was spectacular from start to finish in Toronto. Aaron Gordon was a more-than-worthy challenger, pushing LaVine through a series of tiebreakers until the defending champ had no choice but to break out a paradigm-busting combination: a between-the-legs tomahawk dunk from the free-throw line.

Yes, this is a list of the best dunks, not overall performances. But Vince Carter put on arguably the best Slam Dunk Contest showing of all time to win the 2000 event, with a few mesmerizing jams that are all worthy of being high up on this list. So rather than loading up the list with several Carter dunks from the same contest, they’ll get grouped together. But if one had to be singled out as the best, it would be his first dunk: a reverse-360 windmill that already had TV commentator Kenny Smith saying “let’s go home!” That could take the top spot by itself, but VC was far from finished. For his third dunk, Carter caught the ball in mid-air, put it between his legs for a one-handed jam and then famously declared “it’s over.” The event wasn’t technically over just yet, though. On his fourth attempt, Carter got so high off the ground that he was able to stuff his forearm in the hoop after a one-handed slam.

To tip off a daunting final round—against Houston Rockets guard Steve Francis and fellow Toronto Raptors wing (and cousin) Tracy McGrady—Carter jumped so high that he was able to jam his whole right forearm through the hoop. As he recalled to Sportsnet’s Dave Zarum: You see, at that point, I’m not looking for cheers. I want the arena to be silent. Normally when you watch the dunk contest everybody goes crazy, it’s people screaming, going “Oh my God, did you see that?!!” But how many times did you see a dunk leave the crowd speechless? Where you couldn’t say a word until you saw the dunk a second time. Until then they’re just thinking, Wait a minute, did you just…? Twenty thousand people have to look up at the Jumbotron at the same time to see what happened. Then comes the roar. That’s what I was looking for. And I got it.

Honorable mention to Dwight Howard’s superman alley-oop, which just missed the cut. The showmanship was unforgettable, but he did technically throw it in the hoop. I had a hard time deciding between Carter’s reverse 360 windmill and the honey dip here. Despite how ferociously he threw down the reverse 360 windmill, the honey dip was so iconic it felt like it had to make the cut. Carter had kids all over the country lowering their hoops to 7.5 feet and tearing up their elbows in an attempt to replicate his arm-in-the-rim dunk. It feels like this dunk from LaVine didn’t get the respect it deserved because it was compared to so many others in the insane 2016 Slam Dunk Contest (which was the greatest Slam Dunk Contest of all time, in most people’s opinions). The degree of difficulty to levitate in the air long enough to put the ball behind your back and finish on the other side of the rim is unfathomable.

But will any of the Crescent City’s top dunks hold a candle to these 10, chosen and ranked according to a combination of degree of difficulty and creativity, with bonus points for broader impact? You’ll have to check these out and then tune into TNT on Saturday night at 8 ET to find out. Jason Richardson won back-to-back dunk contests in 2002 and 2003, but his greatest feat might’ve come the following year. At the 2004 competition in Los Angeles, he lobbed the ball to himself off the backboard, brought it through his legs and finished with a right-handed windmill in what TNT’s Kenny Smith described as “the most incredible dunk I’ve ever seen.”