The Best Dunkers Never to Appear in the Dunk Contest

In a league that boasts perhaps the most impressive athletes of any in the world, there is one event that acts as the preeminent verifier of physical supremacy: the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

The very first professional dunk contest was created by the American Basketball Association at its final All-Star Game before merging with the NBA in 1976. That year was an especially important one for the slam-dunk. Beyond the introduction of a new, standalone contest created with the sole purpose of featuring that skill, it was also the year that the NCAA lifted a nine-season dunking ban enacted as a reaction to the dominance of UCLA star and future NBA Hall of Famer Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). Since then, the slam-dunk has evolved to become a central part of the game at both the pro and amateur level.

Surprisingly, it took eight years after the ABA-NBA merger for the Slam Dunk Contest to return to pro basketball, with a star-studded cast of high-flyers inaugurating the event in 1984. The nine contestants that year included Julius Erving, Dominique Wilkins, Clyde Drexler, Ralph Sampson, and the first winner of the event, Larry Nance. In the years that followed, Michael Jordan became a mainstay of the Slam Dunk Contest, becoming the first player to win the event back-to-back in 1987 and 1988. But after that, Jordan bowed out of the event, and for the next decade, it lost a bit of its luster. For the most part, stars no longer wanted to compete in the Slam Dunk Contest, and while Harold Miner and Isaiah Rider were fine consolation prizes, it just wasn’t the same.

After a two-year hiatus in 1998 and 1999, the Slam Dunk Contest returned in a big way in 2000, with Vince Carter changing the event forever through a performance that many still believe is the best we’ll ever see in the event. In the years that have followed, we’ve seen some pretty amazing things in the Dunk Contest, from Jason Richardson’s unbelievable showing in 2003, to a 5-foot-nothing Nate Robinson taking the crown in 2006, 2009, and 2010, to Dwight Howard and Blake Griffin showing that big men can jam with the best of them, to Zach LaVine giving the greatest of all time, Vince Carter, a run for his money this year.

But despite all the fun we’ve had watching the Dunk Contest these past three decades, we’re still left with a lot of what-ifs. From Darryl Dawkins to LeBron James, some of the greatest dunkers to ever walk this planet have never competed in the event. We decided to make a list of the players we most regret not being able to see show off their hops in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest.

Who says big men can’t jump? One of most impressive physical specimens to ever play the center position, DeAndre Jordan is a poster threat every single time he steps onto the floor. You might be saying to yourself that DJ is simply an in-game dunker, and, sure, that’s probably true to an extent. But when you’re 6'11'' with shooting guard hops, and your hands make the ball look like a grapefruit, you’re going to be able to think up some cool stuff to do in a dunk contest. Also, how sweet would it be to see DeAndre throw on a No. 23 Bulls jersey and dunk from the free-throw line?

OK, don’t laugh. I know Swaggy P is a weird choice for this list of freak athletes, but at his peak, Nick Young was actually pretty damn athletic. Don’t get me wrong, though, I’m not putting him on this list because of his hops. I’m including him because as much as the dunk contest is about athletic supremacy, it’s also about fun, and Swaggy P knows how to make stuff really, really fun. I think we’d all be cool with simply handing Señor Buckets the mic and letting him do his thing. I’m pretty confident that Young wouldn’t make it past the first round, but he’d, at least, be willing to try some unique dunks before getting eliminated.

Like DeAndre Jordan, Anthony Davis is simply a physical freak. In my opinion, one of the most underrated dunk contest participants of all time was JaVale McGee in 2011. That dude was just so bouncy and so long that he could do stuff nobody else in the contest could even imagine pulling off. AD is an even more explosive athlete, and he’s one of the league’s most visible rising stars. If anyone can take back the dunking crown for the bigs, it’s Davis.

Recent champions Zach LaVine and Blake Grifin will likely go down as two of the best dunkers in contest history. But if there’s one thing missing from recent dunk contests, it’s attitude, and Darryl Dawkins had more of that than just about anyone. The high-flying big man was such a ferocious dunker that the NBA had to adopt breakaway rims after he shattered two backboards in the span of a week during the 1979–80 season. Nicknamed Chocolate Thunder, Dawkins was basically Swaggy P before there was Swaggy P. He talked about himself in the third person, claimed to hail from Planet Lovetron, and nicknamed his dunks things like “The Spine-Chiller Supreme” and the “The Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting-Wham-Bam-I-Am Jam” (that second one is real, I swear). Unfortunately, though, by the time the dunk contest reached the NBA in 1984, Dawkins was already past his physical peak. He was asked to judge a handful of contests before his untimely death last summer at the age of 58.

Because injuries have robbed Dwyane Wade of much of the freakish athleticism he displayed early in his career, it’s easy to forget just how explosive he once was. His combination of quickness, body control, strength, and leaping ability would have made him one of the most exciting dunkers in the history of the contest. Unfortunately, Wade, like fellow 2003 draftee LeBron James, ultimately decided against participating in the event.

On top of being one of the greatest showmen the league has ever seen, Orlando Magic-era Shaq was one of the most athletic bigs the game has ever seen. Weighing 303 pounds in 1992, a rookie O’Neal posted a reported 36-inch vertical, and he used those hops and his outstanding strength to absolutely punish anyone who made the mistake of getting between him and the hoop. As a rookie, he collapsed the stanchion that holds up the backboard on two occasions, forcing the NBA to “Shaq-proof” the backboard with stronger materials and more counterweight the following year. Like DeAndre Jordan, O’Neal was more of an in-game dunker, but with his incredible physical tools, his creativity, and his outlandish personality, he would have been a joy to watch in the dunk contest.

The fact that the game of basketball has been largely robbed of Derrick Rose’s physical prime is downright criminal. From the year he was drafted in 2008 until he won MVP at the age of 22 in 2011, Rose was one of the most explosive and exciting players in the NBA. At 6'3'', he regularly finished in traffic with his head near rim level, using his unnatural body control to snake his way through defenders en route to the basket before exploding off the hardwood. Unfortunately, he’s missed 242 games to injury over the past five seasons, and when he does suit up it’s clear that the 27-year-old has lost some of the explosion that once made him one of the best finishers in the league. In the dunk contest, he would have been an absolute terror.

LeBron James could have carried the dunk contest through its down years in the mid-2000s, but instead his absence only exacerbated the problem. Undoubtedly the most recognizable athlete of this generation, James at his physical peak possessed everything needed to make a slam-dunk champion. He had the explosion, he had the body control, he had the creativity, and he had the power to rival any dunker that’s competed in the event before him. But for unknown reasons—some postulate that the cost of losing would have been more harmful to his massively profitable brand than the value of winning—LeBron never entered despite several flirtations with the idea. Because of his absence, many other stars in the league during LeBron’s prime also declined invitations, including Rose and Wade. If the King had thrown his crown into the ring, I believe that others would have followed his lead.

So you might be wondering how on earth LeBron James isn’t the man at the top of this list. Two reasons: One, Russell Westbrook is the most consistently exciting in-game dunker the game has seen since Vince Carter, and two, he’d actually care about winning the thing. That second point is more important than you might think. Sure, LeBron could have changed the trajectory of the dunk contest had he entered during the mid-2000s, but I’m not sure that he would have put all that much effort into thinking up creative dunks nor would he have been all that likely to try anything that had a high risk of failure. Westbrook, though? He seems like the type of dude whose Words With Friends games end in blocked numbers, who has never let a buddy’s kid score in a friendly game of backyard basketball, who takes midcourt charges in 2K and furiously taps the triggers while you’re trying to shoot free throws. He’s an athletic and competitive freak. And Russell, if you’re reading this, there’s still time left to enter.