Inside the Art of the Dunk

Quick question: What’s the dunk that makes you close your eyes, look down and shake your head in disbelief? Is it Shaq crippling an entire backboard? Vince Carter being half-man, half-amazing? Or Giannis straight hurdling a guy the other day?

Maybe you can’t get a dunk-contest moment out of your head, like Aaron Gordon jumping over his own mascot, or Jason Richardson’s seemingly impossible 360 windmill. (Although Shaq did tell us his kid can do a 720.) Perhaps it’s Brittney Griner thundering to the rim, or Blake Griffin leaping over a freakin’ car. Hell, maybe you remember Michael when he became the Jumpman...or at least Dwight back when he was Superman. (But he can still posterize, too.)

Such is the magical effect of the slam dunk: Even when you know it’s coming, it takes your breath away. Even when Steph’s step-back threes are coming for Vince’s honey-dip throne, a dunk can stretch the imagination with a mix of athleticism, artistry and authority. It can test the limits of humanity, gravity and swagger all at once, just like that.

Have you watched that video up there? 👆B/R invited Vince Carter himself—the man who evolved the dunk like no other—to guide us through five hall-of-fame slams with the help of 5-star high school prospect and jump-out-the-gym Instagram sensation Cassius Stanley.

We’ll get to those—and more of the greatest dunks in NBA history—as we celebrate the slam in the words of 18 connoisseurs, from OGs like Dominique Wilkins and Spud Webb to the likes of Gordon and Zach LaVine...plus this year’s All-Star Slam Dunk participants: Larry Nance Jr. Donovan Mitchell, Victor Oladipo and Dennis Smith Jr.

But first, another quick question: Why does a great dunk matter, anyway?

It’s more than just two points. “It can get the crowd into the game,” says Richardson, the two-time Slam Dunk Contest champion. “It can motivate your team, get your team excited and get yourself going when you have one of those big dunks—especially if you’re dunking on somebody. Those are game-changers, momentum-changers. You see that at every level, no matter if it’s high school, college or professional.”

To hear legends and legends-in-the-making tell it, there is no GOAT dunker—no best or worst slam, no first dunk ever and certainly no end in sight. To answer questions about the best play in sports, you gotta watch the top 10 (or so) dunks of all time, in no particular order. You gotta let the past meet the present. Because the slam dunk has always kinda been from the future to begin with.  

Let’s start with the ultimate poster, shall we? 👇

Aaron Gordon: My favorite dunk of all time is Vince Carter over the 7-footer. It’s a pretty typical answer, but it’s true. It’s just unreal. He jumped all the way over him, dunked on him. It was just so exciting. He almost knocked Kevin Garnett out, swinging his arm. That was sick.

Dennis Smith Jr.: Vince Carter. When he jumped over the 7-footer. That’s just ridiculous. It ain’t even no words for that. That’s just ridiculous.

Larry Nance Jr.: I don’t know if there’s anybody else now or then that could do something like that. Vince is one of a kind. Nobody else would even think about it.

Jeremy Evans: I mean, the one that Vince Carter had when he jumped over the guy almost. That was crazy, in-game. You’ve seen a lot of guys dunking in games, windmills, 360s, but have you ever seen anything—besides that—where somebody basically jumps over the defender that’s in front of him?

Carter recently rewatched a clip of that dunk over Frederic Weis. It did, after all, surpass the realms of reality, in addition to inspire a group of dunkers just coming of age. Turns out, he and Garnett were cheering two completely different moments. Carter didn’t originally think he had enough lift to complete the leap in Sydney at all, descending amazed that he had even finished it. Garnett, however, was busy celebrating that Carter had jumped over another human being entirely. It was a definitive moment for Carter, who since a young age has studied the mechanics of the slam dunk, its history and form.

Vince Carter: I watched and studied the art of dunking and what guys are thinking about when they do it. I just looked at it different. People, in my mind, saw the dunk for what it was right there. Whatever he did—360, the windmill. He went in between his legs. I was more so: “Yes, he did it, but why? What was he trying to accomplish in that dunk? What was he trying to show you?”

I think back in the day, they’re trying to show you stuff. Why did Dominique do the two-hand windmill? A lot of people were doing one-hand windmills. It was the power. He was trying to show you, "Yeah, I can get up as high as you on a one-hand windmill with two hands." That's how I broke dunks down back then. You look at the dunks different.

Dominique Wilkins • Feb. 9 , 1985 @ The Dunk Contest

Dominique Wilkins: It was one of those things where I was angry, because I didn’t get a call. When I went up, I tried to dunk as hard as I could. I wanted to put something extra on it—so it just happened, basically by accident.

It’s definitely an art. It’s graceful. It’s poetry in motion. It’s a very graceful talent that a lot of guys don’t have. A lot of guys can pretty much dunk. But can you dunk in traffic? Can you move the ball in your hand? Can you change your body to elude contact? There’s a lot of different ways that you finish, and the great dunkers, that’s what you do.

Jason Richardson: Dominique Wilkins is one of my favorite players. I used to watch those dunk contests and every now and then, we'd get an Atlanta game on TV. I'd get to watch when they played the Pistons, and I used to study his dunks. I used to do them on my little hanger, put them on my door and get a sock and imitate Dominique's dunks all the time.

Growing up, that’s what you look forward to—watching the All-Star Game dunk contest and seeing your guys. You’re seeing Dr. J. You’re seeing Dominique Wilkins. You’re seeing Michael Jordan.

Shaquille O’Neal: Dominique, Dr. J, Michael Jordan. If you look at my emblem, I stole my emblem from Rony Seikaly—the way he used to dunk in college, he used to kick his legs up like he was crazy. So, I started doing that. Then I was in college, and I was taking a marketing/branding class. I looked at Michael Jordan's emblem and the way he dunked, he spread his legs out, and I said, “You know what? Michael has the jumpman, so I’m going to make mine dunkman.”

Shaquille O'Neal 🍸💔  • April 23, 1993 @ Nets

Cassius Stanley: I watched a lot of NBA TV when I was growing up. Every time it was All-Star Weekend, it would always just replay dunk contests and I would record them and watch them.

Vince Carter 💪🏽↘🗑️ • Feb. 12, 2000 @ The Dunk Contest

Vince Carter: We saw, Oh, he hung on the rim. Ah man, I’ve never seen that before! But what I was trying to show you is—if this is the rim, I can jump this high above the rim. While being that high, I still have the ability to hang on the rim and still hang without hurting myself. Different things like that. That’s what I was trying to show you.

Cassius Stanley: The elbow in the rim…if you rewatch that, everybody in the arena’s just silent, and their jaws just drop. Because that’s just never been done before. And I think that’s my favorite—how simple everyone thought it was, but then once you rewatch it, how hard it actually is, how hard it is to do that and not get hurt. I have tried it.

Zach LaVine: I was a big Kobe fan. Vince Carter. Michael Jordan, obviously—his influence with dunking was incredible. Those were pretty much the big three for me. They just had such a big influence, and you just watched them, because you can't replicate some of the stuff that they did. Everybody is an individual and have their own unique style and stuff like that, but it's just people you look up to.

Kobe 🌪️✈️ > Sprewell • Feb. 6, 2003 @ MSG

Jordan > Ewing • April 30, 1991 @ Knicks

Spud Webb: [Today,] I watch LeBron. I watch the young guy in Orlando, Gordon. And I watch the one that just got traded to Chicago [LaVine]—he’s pretty good. Those guys are guys I like. The Greek Freak—love to see him. And now Dennis Smith Jr.—everybody’s raving about him. I go down and see him just about every night he plays. It just comes natural to him that he can do all those dunks. I can just imagine if he gets into a dunk contest what it can be like.

Derrick Jones Jr.: I just took it as another dunk contest that I been in. It wasn’t nothing serious. I mean, it was. [Pause.] The NBA dunk contest.

Zach LaVine: You just gotta go out and try performing.

Dee Brown: My thought going into the last dunk was I needed a signature dunk—some dunk that was unique, that identified me like Michael Jordan from the free-throw line, like Dominique Wilkins’ windmill. … I’m sitting on the box, thinking, I need a signature dunk. I need a signature dunk. What can I do? What can I do? It came to me. That’s what came to me. That’s exactly how fast it happened.

Dee Brown 🚫 👀 • Feb. 9, 1991 @ The Dunk Contest

Dee Brown: The last dunk, the no-look dunk, I’d never practiced before. I had never did it. So I had no idea I was going to do that dunk. I made it up as I was running to the basket. That was the first time I ever did that dunk. I was originally just going to close my eyes, but nobody would’ve saw that. So, I said, “OK, I’ll just put my hands over my eyes.” And as I jumped, the hand just kept going. My eyes are still closed and then my head went into my elbow and the rest is history. Either I was going to make it and we talk about it 25 years later, or I was going to miss it and we talk about it 25 years later.

The dunk contest appeared to be running on tired legs near the turn of the millennium. The 1997 All-Star Game featured the likes of Jordan, Clyde Drexler and Shawn Kemp, but they all sat out the dunk contest. Kobe Bryant was dynamic in winning it, but his competition featured little-known players like Chris Carr, Bobby Sura and Darvin Ham. “Guys had too much stuff going on, especially with star players,” Wilkins says now. “For whatever reason, it was the last thing on their radar.”

The NBA bypassed the contest at All-Star Weekend in 1998 in favor of the WNBA-NBA 2Ball Contest at Madison Square Garden. The following year’s lockout knocked out the All-Star festivities altogether.

But some key league executives argued for the contest’s return—and in 2000, Vince Carter made the case for himself. He put on an incredible aerial display that left fans eagerly anticipating what lay ahead for the dunk. Maybe it had NOT all been done before? In 2002, the Warriors’ Jason Richardson followed Carter’s example, finding inspiration from an unexpected source...

I know if I get to the dunk contest … I could get an extra five or six inches on my jump. Because I’m excited.

—JASON RICHARDSON

Jason Richardson: Gilbert Arenas. He was my teammate in Golden State. He always had these crazy ideas for dunks. He could never get up that high, but he used to have all these crazy ideas. And we used to be in the gym. He used to always come up with these things: “You need to do this. You need to do that.” He’s like, “I’ve got a dunk for you for the dunk contest.” “What are you talking about, Gil?” He was telling me about this dunk and I was like, “Yo, I don’t think I can do it.” “Trust me, J. You can do this dunk.”

I tried it like two or three times and I couldn’t complete it. But I know if I get to the dunk contest—that was something I always dreamed about as a kid and always wanted to do—I could get an extra five or six inches on my jump. Because I’m excited in that situation. So, I said, “OK, I need to save this for my last dunk. I think I can pull it out.”

So, we get to the dunk contest, and Fred Jones comes with a spectacular between-the-legs dunk. I was like, Oh, my goodness. I said, “I don’t know if I’m going to win this dunk contest.” And I remembered Gilbert gave me this dunk and I said, “OK, let me try it and see if I could do it.”

Jason Richardson 🔄🎡 • Feb. 9, 2002 @ The Dunk Contest

Jason Richardson: And when I did the dunk and I landed, I didn’t know if people were going to be excited or what, because I never completed the dunk in practice. So, I was trying to wait and see. You could see when I landed. There was a pause.

It shocked me at first. I was like, Wow, I actually did this dunk that I thought I couldn’t do—the take-it-between-your-legs, reverse, and dunk-with-your-left-hand. And I was like, Wow, I actually did it.

Zach LaVine: I’m just glad I was able to go out there and put on a show.

Dominique Wilkins: They actually brought the dunk contest back, those two guys. They put on a beautiful show. They really did.

Zach Lavine 🛫✂️ • Feb. 13, 2016 @ The Dunk Contest

Zach LaVine: We both do our job. We’re entertainers for the weekend, and we went down and said we wanted one of the better dunk contests in history.

I still got a couple dunks I’m going to save up my sleeve. Possibility I might be able to do it again if I want to, so I’m going to have to leave that to speculation. ... I’m trying to get my full bounce back again, but I still got a couple dunks left I might be able to do.

Aaron Gordon: I don’t think Zach’s going to do it [again]. He already won twice. If anything, he’ll do the three-point contest.

DeMar DeRozan: I had a couple. I doubt I can do them now, but yeah. I had a couple. Hopefully, I can get Norman [Powell] in the dunk contest and he can use them. So, I don't want to give them away too much. I've been holding them, so hopefully they’ll be seen. If they do happen, I’ll make sure I put my name on it.

Dee Brown: I had one dunk. I couldn’t really do it, because they wouldn’t let me take the nets down. It would’ve taken too long. So, for me to do this dunk, I would’ve taken the nets down and just have the rim. It was a dunk where you dunk it and when it comes out the rim, you catch and dunk it again. [With] the net, it would’ve been too hard. I tried it and it didn’t work, because it would slow it down and I wouldn’t be able to get the ball out quick enough to dunk it. And then the other one I had was throw it off the bounce, catch it off the bounce, touch the backboard and do a 360. I had that one in my pocket, just in case.

Derrick Jones Jr: That’s a secret, just in case if they call me back again.

Glenn Robinson III: I’ve got a few things up my sleeve.

Victor Oladipo: I'm just looking forward to having a good time and trying to do something that's never been seen before.

Dennis Smith Jr: It’s in L.A. this year? Shoot, I’d probably get someone out there to throw me a nice lob. Somebody that’s a big-time guy out there. And I’d just try to bring some flavor to it, win it and enjoy myself.

The common link with all these dunkers: There’s nothing like their first slam—a private moment, typically not captured on film, but forever etched in their memories.

Dee Brown: Everybody’s goal is to dunk when you play basketball. It doesn’t matter—black, white, boys, girls. You feel like if you can dunk, not only can you impress your friends or maybe have a chance to make the high school team, you can impress everybody else. You can impress the girls and all that. That was a badge of honor as a young basketball player.

It’s kind of like finding a new toy as a kid … feeling like I can fly over the top of people and people can’t stop me from throwing it down.

—AARON GORDON

Aaron Gordon: It’s kind of like finding a new toy as a kid. You just want to play with it over and over again. It’s still a new toy for me. I love doing it. It’s so much fun being out there, feeling like I can fly over the top of people and people can’t stop me from throwing it down.

Vince Carter: I was in sixth grade on the outside courts with some friends, fooling around. It was just one of those times where I worked my way from a golf ball to a tennis ball, to a little volleyball, to a girl’s ball to a basketball. Me, if I visualize it and practice it and practice it, I’ll get it. That’s how I learned how to dunk...off of muscle memory, knowing how high I had to get up in the air. I was just going through it. I remember doing one hand, one leg out there on the outside courts. I remember it like it was yesterday.

Dee Brown: I’ll never forget my first dunk in a game. I got a dunk and was so excited. The next possession, I got the ball and was bringing the ball up court and...I was still thinking about the dunk! Brought the ball over half court and threw the ball back to my teammate who was on the other side of half court, because I kind of just lost it. Wow, I dunked in a game in front of a crowd.

Everybody was cheering, and that’s what a dunk does to you. When I had my first dunk in high school, all I remember about it was getting pulled right after the dunk. Because the next possession, I was still thinking about the dunk. I made a turnover by throwing the ball into the backcourt to my teammate.

Donovan Mitchell: You feel the adrenaline in your body. You feel it in your legs. I think that's the best part. Your legs feel like you can get up there. It’s easy mentally to feel like you can get up there, but if your legs aren’t there, your energy’s not there, then it’s a different story. But if your whole body is on the same page with what you want to do, I think that's the best feeling.