NBA Slam Dunk Contest 2014: Shaq and Drake Cameo Appearances Steal Spotlight

During what was a truly underwhelming dunk contest, there was one memorable dunk and two memorable celebrity appearances. 

And that's about it. 

While Damian Lillard, defending champion Terrence Ross, Ben McLemore and Paul George all put down some very solid slams, the contest's new rules and complete over-the-top production quality seriously took away from the event on an overall basis. 

To sum it up, as Yahoo! Sports' Kari Van Horn put it, this year's dunk contest left most onlookers feeling about as cheated as Ashley Wagner:

But John Wall, who won the fan vote as the best dunker of the night, was the saving grace. On the final dunk of the contest, the Washington Wizards point guard—on his very first attempt, which made it much better—did this:

Unfortunately, there weren't many memorable moments beyond that and a couple of cameo appearances from celebrities. 

The first of those came during the individual round—yes, there was a group round, too—when Ross brought out Toronto native Drake, aka Aubrey Graham, aka Jimmy Brooks. 

With Drake by his side, Ross entered draped in a boxing robe while holding his trophy from last year's contest. Although it was an unfortunate amount of unnecessary antics from one of the best pure dunkers in the league, he still managed to use the famous rapper to put down a really impressive between-the-legs slam. 

Take a gander:

Credit: Bleacher Report

The other cameo of the night came from none other than the "Big Shaqtus" himself, Shaquille O'Neal. The man who once referred to the Sacramento Kings as the Sacramento "Queens" came out with McLemore dressed in a King's robe. 

Jose3030 provided a look at the scene:

As Shaq sat down on the throne, McLemore proceeded to dunk over him. The explosive rookie had to do the splits to clear the throne, which somewhat took away from the quality, but it was still a nice-looking dunk nonetheless:

Credit: Bleacher Report

And there you have it. One spectacular dunk from Wall, a couple of cameo appearances and some pretty solid slams from the rest of the competitors. 

There were certainly some nice moments, but it doesn't get much more underwhelming than that from what used to be one of the top events in all of sports.