NBA Slam Dunk Predictions 2012: New Format Ensures Contest Will Be Failure

The NBA announced changes to their Slam Dunk Contest format, new for 2012, and they signify that this event is now irrelevant.

Beside the fact that no-names Chase Budinger, Paul George, Jeremy Evans and Derrick Williams are competing, the “new” way the contest works is sure to sink any contest this had of being awesome.

Let’s take a look at the proposed changes courtesy of NBA.com

Single Round

This is just ridiculous. The most recent, and arguably most successful, method involved two rounds of competition.

The first would give all dunkers a chance to impress a panel of judges (we’ll get to this in a second) and then the top two players would advance to a final round.

Now there is just one round and each contestant gets a chance to do three different dunks.

This takes out the intrigue of whether a player should go all out to get into the finals or save their best for last.

It’s just going to be a bunch of mediocre dunks in a row now with this poor change.

No Judges

Judges can add excitement, intrigue and a talking point after the crowd and viewers see how they vote.

Back in 2007, the league got some awesome former champions to score the competition, including Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, Julius Erving, Kobe Bryant and Vince Carter.

These guys made the contest larger than life by just being there.

Now it’s solely up to the fans to pick a winner and the voting doesn’t even open until after everyone has gone.

This means dunks will not have a score, and that’s a shame.

Fan Voting

This popularity contest can hurt players from small markets and sometimes the best dunk will not even be chosen.

Back in 2010, Nate Robinson won with 51 percent of the vote when many pundits felt DeMar DeRozan should have been the rightful champion.

It’s just a poor decision to let fans decide everything in the contest and judges need to be involved in 2013.