10 greatest slam dunk contest performances of all time

2. Zach LaVine (2016)

The 2016 Dunk Contest was darn near impossible to call. To this day, many people will swear Gordon should have won the event, while others agree with the judges’ decision to award LaVine the crown.

There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned sports debate to add a bit of mystique to the memory of a performance.

We give the edge to LaVine for this list, but really only because the judges did. The contest is too close to call for us, so we’ll side with the so-called experts this time. We’ll give a slight edge to LaVine in terms of athletic achievement in his dunks for the event (very, tiny, minuscule slight edge) while Gordon probably earns the checkmark when it comes to style and originality.

LaVine started things off with a casual toss of the ball which quickly turned into a behind-the-back reverse slam highlighted by the height he reached on the dunk, the way he cupped the ball and changed hands in mid-air, and how far away from the rim he was when he actually finished the dunk. He was able to be at full extension when finally slamming it home, perfectly timing his jump, in-air maneuver, and finish. The dunk earns LaVine a perfect score of 50.

His next dunk would be the only attempt of the night that did not earn him a perfect score. LaVine’s mid-air alley-oop while jumping from the free throw line is only good enough to earn him a score of 49.

Lavine matches Gordon’s double perfect scores in the second round when he catches a self-bouncing-alley-oop at full extension and performs a 360-degree turn in mid-air while cupping the ball before his dunk. His next effort is a two-handed windmill dunk from the free-throw line that makes sure the event heads into a tie-breaker.

In the tie-breaker LaVine first attempt was from the baseline, throwing himself a bouncing alley-oop that he catches mid-air and puts between his legs before finishing with a two-handed reverse.

His final dunk of the night, the one that seals the win for LaVine is another free throw line attempt. This time, LaVine brings the ball between his legs before slamming it home, something we had never seen in a Dunk Contest to this point.