The NBA Slam Dunk Contest used to mean something. It featured the league’s best players going head-to-head in front of roaring crowds during All-Star Weekend.
Julius Erving was right in the middle of that era. He won the first ABA Slam Dunk Contest in 1976 with his free-throw line dunk that people still talk about today. He came back for the NBA contests in 1984 and 1985 when he was already a veteran with serious mileage.
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Erving finished his career with 30,026 points and MVP awards in both the ABA and NBA. When he showed up for All-Star Weekend, it felt like a gift to the fans, not some calculated branding move.
Now the contest is filled with G-League guys and specialists most fans don’t recognize. It’s gotten so watered down that regular season dunks during random Tuesday night games look better than what goes down on dunk night.
Erving spoke with TMZ Sports recently and made it clear he wants today’s stars to step up and save what’s left of the tradition.
“You can’t make it mandatory. It’s something that they gotta volunteer to do,” Erving said. “It’d be nice if some of the stars would step up. Have a conscience in terms of the history of the Slam Dunk Contest. I was in the original one, back in 1976. For some of them, they weren’t even born. So, they wouldn’t know.”
“They can’t make people do stuff these days. They make too much money to make them do anything. Sometimes they don’t even want to play.”
Julius Erving calls on NBA stars to save the dunk contest! 🏀 https://t.co/ponMwijU81 pic.twitter.com/kF3Svttumc
It’s tough to watch what All-Star weekend turned into compared to what it used to be. NBA stars used to want those moments. They wanted to compete, win, and prove they belonged above everyone else.
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The latest contest at the Intuit Dome featured Jaxson Hayes and Keshad Johnson. Both can play and dunk, no doubts, but fans wanted names like Anthony Edwards or Ja Morant.
Some around the league think losing to Mac McClung, who won three times now, does more damage than entering helps. Nobody wants a missed dunk turned into a meme that lives forever online.
Then there’s the physical side. The season grinds players down, and many stars use the break to rest their bodies. Until that mindset shifts, the days of Erving, Nate Robinson, Vince Carter-level star power at the dunk contest might be gone for good.