Is the Slam Dunk Contest flushed?

Who cares if Nate Robinson won a third straight Slam Dunk title?

He should when the competition was so lousy that I never bothered to finish it. What was the point of having the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders on the floor? Props? Nate said that they were way too pretty for him to do anything like dunking over them or what. He should have dunked while wearing them pom poms! Now that would have been something. Or then again maybe not. But one of them cheerleaders dunking would have been more fun.

And speaking of more fun, the Skills Challenge was definitely more fun and way more interesting. Steve Nash ain’t ready to ride off into the sunset. Along with the Three-Point Shootout, it made the day's festivities worth it until the Slam Dunk Contest that was a super dud.

Does this mean the end of the dunk contest?

Not by a long shot. The whole shebang is cyclical in nature. We'll have good years and bad ones.

I’m never going to forget watching that Slam Dunk contest between Larry Nance and Julius Erving. There were all these ferocious dunkers coming up then – Nique, MJ, Jerome Kersey, Clyde, Gerald Wilkins, even Alvin Robertson. And there was Chuck; although the Round Mound didn’t compete as he preferred to embarrass people during games. And oh, there was this guy named Spud.

The dunk contest tapered off when Nique hung up his high tops. There were some interesting ones – like when Dee Brown beat Shawn Kemp in ’91 with his blind dunk complete with his pumping up his Reebok Pumps before he took off. He sure learned a thing or two from His Airness when it came to self-promotion during All-Star Weekend. And, Kemp should have won at least one except that like in his NBA career, he didn’t win the big one.

In ’94, JR Rider transferred the ball from either hand under his legs before slamming it home. And Kobe… he had some nifty dunks then in ’97 but who was that Euro white guy who did him one better by jumping over a car to flush that baby home? I think he went to the Phoenix Suns later but was buried so deep in the bench that hardly anyone remembers him?

What made the Slam Dunk contest such a big hit back then was that the world was a little more disconnected then. Cable television was a luxury and the exploits of many a player traveled via word-of-mouth or print.

The rivalries between teams and players were for real. The sub-plots were thick and compelling. There were conspiracy theories – was Nique robbed in Chi-town because of a hometown decision?

But the dunk has always been about the big stars although there have been a few like Robinson who became bigger stars after winning the dunk contest. But that year, 2006, it should have been Andre Igoudala not Robinson who should have won the contest. It took him 17 attempts to get it right before he was awarded the win! No wonder conspiracy theories abound in David Stern’s NBA.

But the stars --- for years, Vince Carter was one if the best but he avoided the contest until 2000.

Last year when Nate Robinson beat Dwight Howard, LeBron James was saying that he’d be competing in this year’s edition. Whether he was saving himself for the All-Star Game or he didn’t want to risk injury, well that’s his lookout. But the Slam Dunk Competition is all about the stars not the scrubs.

That’s why it’s All-Star Saturday not All-Scrub Saturday. The Skills Challenge attracts more A-list stars than the dunk contest. The dunk, whether we agree to it or not, is the signature shot of the NBA. They use it on highlight reels and videos on top of circus shots and game winners to sell the Association as amazing. If the NBA argues that if the fans want to see Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady in the All-Star Game then they should apply the same to the Slam Dunk Contest, Three-Point Shootout and the Skills Challenge.

I want to see amazing. What fan doesn’t want to see Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Josh Smith, Dwight Howard, Rudy Fernandez, and Nate Robinson in one court in a dunk competition?

Time for fans to text in, write in, or blog in their votes.