NBA Dunk Contest Is a Joke

Seriously — this event has become a major joke...worse than a joke, it is a yawn fest. When Nate Robinson, all 3'5" of him, is your highlight attraction, then you can't really call it an "event."

Robinson, Gerald Wallace, Shannon Brown, and DeMar DeRozan isn't exactly murderers' row.

So much for LeBron's third person quote from last year's All-Star game: "LeBron James is saying in 2010, in Dallas Stadium, preliminarily, he will compete." At least he would have contributed some wattage to the event.

Robinson, Wallace, Brown, and DeRozan...not exactly Dominique v. MJ, is it?

The last year with several serious dunkers in the field was 2005 (Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, Birdman Anderson and Amare), but that was still a yawn-fest. The last year with wattage was 2000 (Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Jerry Stackhouse). Dwight Howard's phone booth and Nate Robinson' lack of height are just not that exciting.

If the big guns won't show up anymore, this event needs to be retired. There are only so many ways to put the ball through the hoop. What makes a competition an "event" is the excitement factor. At this point, only the stars would be able to provide that excitement.

It is absolutely conceivable that all the best dunks have already been dunked, so maybe the stars don't want to go out there and look pedestrian. Maybe they don't want to risk injury. I don't know. What I do know is that the contest is a joke and that some creative soul in the league office needs to come up with a new event.