Top Five NBA All-Star Game Dunk Contests Of All Time

All-Star Saturday Night used to belong to the dunkers. Before the three-point shootout took over, the Slam Dunk Contest was the event that kept fans up late, losing their minds over creative, gravity-defying aerial rim attacks. Here are the five contests that remind us why.

5. Jason Richardson (2003)

For the second consecutive year, Richardson and Desmond Mason went head-to-head to dominate the spotlight of the All-Star Saturday. In 2003, Richardson put the exclamation point on his repeat bid when he sent the Atlanta crowd and his peers into an absolute frenzy by catching a self-pass from the baseline and switching from right to left between his legs before flushing the final dunk of the competition. 

4. Spud Webb (1986)

Standing somewhere between 5’6” and 5’7", Atlanta Hawks guard Spud Webb shouldn't have even been a contender for a dunk contest. And yet in 1986, he beat his own teammate, “The Human Highlight Film” Dominique Wilkins, to become the shortest player ever to win the contest. Webb proved to the Dallas crowd that size didn’t matter in this hoops version of David vs. Goliath. Hitting double pumps, 180’s, self-tossed lobs, and reverse dunks, Webb holds the record for the shortest NBA Dunk Contest champion. 

3. Zach LaVine vs. Aaron Gordon (2016)

A modern-day heavyweight boxing match version of the dunk contest. Both Gordon and LaVine scored a perfect 100 in the final round and 50s in a dunk-off, forcing multiple overtimes. LaVine pulled off a between-the-legs dunk from the free throw line on the second tiebreaker, a dunk he claimed to have never tried before. Meanwhile, Gordon went over the Magic mascot while putting the ball under both legs mid-flight. "It was the best dunk contest ever," Kenny Smith said on TNT. "I've never seen anything like two guys go at it like that." Many will argue that Gordon was robbed of a victory, but on this night, all slam dunk contest fans came away winners. 

2. Michael Jordan vs. Dominique Wilkins (1988)

In the battle of “Air Jordan” vs. “The Human Highlight Film, Jordan needed a perfect 50 to win the contest in front of his home Chicago crowd. Putting his own flavor on Dr. J’s title-winning 1976 performance, Jordan took off from the free-throw line and ended the night with a perfect 50 for his third dunk to win the contest for the second straight year.  While there was some controversy due to Wilkins’ low score on his final dunk and a heavily Chicago-influenced judging panel, Jordan’s dunk show remains one of the greatest of all time. 

1. Vince Carter (2000)

As a first-time All-Star with the Toronto Raptors, Vince Carter put on a one-man show that not only captivated the entire Dunk Contest but also an entire country.  He started with perhaps one of the greatest dunks of all-time, a reverse 360, prompting Kenny Smith to all but announce that the contest was done, "Let's go home, ladies and gentlemen!" Then came the elbow dunk as Carter literally hung his forearm inside the rim. Carter continued to blow away the competition, showing us things we'd never seen before and setting the standard for all future dunk contests.