How do you even begin to rank the 30 greatest poster dunks of all time? We don’t know, either, but here are 30 of our favorite in NBA history.
Even in the midst of the NBA playoffs, there are few things you can go back to over and over again and never get tired of it, and that’s a collection of the greatest poster dunks of all time.
We know ranking these things turn into to touchy subjects for some, so this list is completely random and not ranked from best to worst or the other way around. We also know that there are way more than 30 incredible poster dunks, some of which you may feel like belong on this list.
Rest assured, we completely agree with you. If your favorite dunk isn’t here, it absolutely should be. If you feel like you still need to let us know, find us on Facebook or Twitter and politely yell at us with links to dunks that we missed and we might politely yell back at you.
Regardless of how you feel about the list, there is definitely something here for everyone because, at the end of the day, it’s guys getting destroyed at the rim for our mindless entertainment.
With that being said, let’s get into it with Blake Griffin doing incredibly mean things to Kendrick Perkins.
30. Blake Griffin destroys Kendrick Perkins
At exactly 8.5 seconds into this clip, Kendrick Perkins is contemplating every single one of his life choices that led to this very moment. Blake Griffin, just the year before, put the NBA on notice with his poster dunk over Timofey Mozgov, and this one was just way more brutal.
At theme you’ll notice from most of the great poster dunks is the moments immediately after the dunk is thrown down — not the dunk itself — is what makes these plays special.
This time, you have DeAndre Jordan grabbing Griffin with all of his might, genuinely terrified that Griffin just might take another life at the rim. Griffin looks almost possessed as he walks away from the crime scene, and then there is this look of what can only be described as remorse after he daps up Caron Butler and realizes what he’s done.
There is so much contact at the rim and Griffin fights through all of it in mid-air to throw down one of the greatest dunks in NBA history. This was when the Lob City era of the Clippers were at the peak of their excitement and Griffin was, by and large, the main attraction.
Perkins had the look of a man who had been there before, but would give anything to not have to live through another mid-air clash with one of the NBA’s premier skywalkers [narrator voice: it would not be his last mid-air clash]. Perkins demise was rough for him, but a delight for just about everyone else.
29. Vince Carter over Alonzo Mourning
We’re not sure what’s worse here for Alonzo Mourning: the fact that he got baptized in one of the most brutal dunks in NBA history or that his own teammate was laughing about it after the game. In a post-game locker room, Dwyane Wade was asked about the dunk, and while chucking he said, “that was definitely top 10, in the whole history of the NBA.”
Who are we to disagree? Vince Carter was born to dunk on, over and around people. He has what is maybe the most memorable poster in international play when he jumped over the 7-foot Frederic Weiss and one of the elite individual performances in an NBA dunk contest. And then there is the dunk over Zo — one of the best shot blockers in NBA history.
It wasn’t just the dunk that made this one special. It was the presence of mind to go behind the back once he grabbed the loose ball to keep it away from Jason Williams. Zo was ostensibly ready for Carter as he had time to gather and jump with him, but Carter was so explosive that he was able to take the contact and still flush one down.
Mourning can only blame himself on this one though. After he altered Richard Jefferson’s layup, he was right there in position to gather the board, the ball bounced off his hands and landed directly in Carter’s, and the rest was history. Defensive possessions don’t end until you secure the board, Zo.
28. Shawn Kemp over Alton Lister
In most circumstances, dunks off two feet are just more aesthetically appealing than those off one, but Shawn Kemp was one of the rare exceptions to the rule. A one-leg, one-arm windmill? Yuck. Oh, it’s Shawn Kemp dunking over Alton Lister? That changes EVERYTHING.
You could tell that when Kemp caught the ball at the top of the perimeter he had nothing but bad intentions on his mind, and after he threw down the dunk, it just got even more rude and disrespectful when he started pointing at Lister with both hands. Lister is beside himself as Kemp starts pointing at him and in the background all you can hear is, “YEEEAAAAAHHHHH BABY! INTO LISTER’S FACE.” I don’t know about you, but dunking into someone’s face seems a tad bit more disrespectful than dunking in someone’s face and I love it.
In the commentary over the replay, you can hear the play-by-play man say, “A lot of people would think, ‘Should that be a charging foul?’ No! There is a dead area under the basket where players are not supposed to be, and if the guy driving to the basket runs into him and knocks him down, that’s not considered a foul, because that is kind of a dead territory, and that’s what you see when Kemp hits Alton Lister.”
The irony about this is that wherever Lister landed immediately became the dead territory, and its fair to wonder if he’s ever left it after what Kemp did to him.
27. Derrick Rose over Goran Dragic
Derrick Rose hammering one home over Goran Dragic is the ultimate case study in “why in the hell did he jump?” Just listen to Stacy King after Rose scrapes his head on the top of the then US Airways Center looking down on the hapless Dragic.
“Stop it! Stop it! He did not do him like that,” King begin as Rose starts stomping around the edges of the court. “What are you doing Dragic? Did you not get the memo? Derrick Rose can go upstairs! WOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The double calf wraps with just an inch of space between the wrap and the socks give Rose’s legs an almost bionic look when you watch the dunk from the baseline camera. He lifts off the ground as if gravity is just one of those laws you can just choose to ignore.
As Rose is cocking the ball back completely behind his head, Dragic is wondering why he didn’t give up on the play. He was behind Rose for the entirety of the break and knows — like, he KNOWS — that he can’t jump with Rose, and jumps anyway.
It’s one of those plays that we’ll never understand but remain happy for the confusion.
26. Dwyane Wade over Anderson Varejao
LeBron James turned the corner on Udonis Haslem and went up for what could have been a poster over Jermaine O’Neal. Bron missed the dunk, Dwyane Wade collected the rebound and went coast-to-coast for one of the most surreal moments in recent NBA memory.
The James-Wade relationship is what makes this dunk so much fun. James has bested his bestie in terms of career accomplishments, but on this night, in this moment, it was Wade who showed James how to throw one down.
Anderson Varejao got the worst of the sequence. Wade didn’t appear to be looking to throw one down when his gather began with a Eurostep, but when Wade realized he wasn’t going to get around Varejao, he knew he had to go through him and threw down a vicious dunk, hoop plus the harm.
After the foul call, Wade began flexing at Varejao and then turned to the crowd, stomping around yelling “THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT.”
Even with all of that theatre, the best part of the moment is seeing Michael Jordan courtside looking like a 10-year-old kid watching one of his idols, starry-eyed and in awe of what he just saw on the court while sitting next to Pat Riley.
25. Kobe Bryant over Dwight Howard
Watching this dunk in 2018 feels so much different than it did when it actually happened. When Kobe Bryant threw down one of the most disrespectful dunks of all time on a rookie Dwight Howard, it just felt like a rookie finding himself at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Howard would tell the NBA that it was the first time he had been dunked on in his life and that he was asked for an autograph by a kid wearing a shirt of Kobe dunking on him. The dunk was iconic just for the sheer force that Bryant unleashed when he threw it down.
However, the dunk itself sort of took on a life of its own as it feels more like foreshadowing now than an innocent basketball play then. Bryant and Howard would later become teammates in one of the weirdest seasons in Lakers history and tensions would rise the next season when Howard was a member of the Rockets, leading to the infamous “soft” gif that has littered the Internet ever since.
DeShawn Stevenson and Pat Garrity didn’t do Howard any favors. Stevenson didn’t really work to fight through a screen and Garrity kind of just stood there and watched Bryant fly by instead of impeding his path to Howard. Maybe both believe that they had elite rim protection behind them and Howard could handle his own. Instead, he was caught off guard by Bryant who had nothing but destruction on his mind as he approached the rim.
24. DeAndre Jordan over Brandon Knight
Rest in peace to the homie Brandon Knight. He was the unfortunate victim of a weakside help defender caught between a Lob City pick and roll and fatality. After this monster DeAndre Jordan caught want of the most brutally volatile alley-oops — maybe the most brutally volatile — in the history of the game, Knight dropped from imaginable heights onto the Staples Center floor.
There are several witnesses who claim to have seen Knight’s very soul lift from his body as he lay there lifeless in the restricted area. After a few moments, he rubbed his eyes and, as one fan recalls, “may not actually be alive anymore.”
Jordan over Knight is one of those dunks where you always remember where you were when you saw it, even if you didn’t watch it live. When the video started trickling down Twitter feeds and screenshots of Jordan’s “I can’t believe I just did that” face, the reactions and jokes became as much a part of the dunk as the lob that led to it.
If nothing else, rewatch the video for Chris Paul’s glance at Knight lying on the floor, Caron Butler’s confusion, the brief moment of Lamar Odom’s face and the sound you hear when Knight hits the ground when watching from the baseline camera. Everything about this dunk is perfect.
23. Baron Davis over Andrei Kirilenko
This is my favorite dunk of all time for two reasons.
Reason 1: It was the end of the school year and just about everyone had moved out of the dorm building that I lived in except for the guys who all hooped together. There were about 12 of us and we were all watching the game in separate rooms, one at the north end of the hall, one at the very south. Our room went through three 12-packs of Coors Light cans (please don’t judge us, we were poor) and our friends were sharing a couple bottles of cheap Vodka. Choice in alcohol is how we split up the rooms
When Baron Davis turned the corner and levied the boom on Andrei Kirilenko, everyone on the floor screamed ran out into the halls as drunk as you could possibly be without blacking out and continued to repeat after every replay. This was the most fun I’ve ever had because of a single play of a basketball game.
Reason 2: A playoff basketball game came to a full stop and was sent to commercial because of the magnitude of the moment. It was the apex moment in a season that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Everyone in Oracle Arena lost their collective minds, Baron Davis untucked his jersey immediately after it happened largely because, what else do you do in that moment? The “We Believe T-Shirts combined with Adonal Foyle making a “thizz face” at the height of the Hyphy movement was just the most Oakland moment the city could have asked for.
I don’t remember anything else about that Jazz team other than what happened in the midst of that moment.
22. Michael Jordan over Patrick Ewing
Michael Jordan did so much over the course of his career to pick a single defining moment. Game 6 is 1998 is a nice place to start, but you really can’t discount his dunk over Patrick Ewing in the 1991 postseason. He was finally turning the corner and on the road to his first of six titles, and he wasn’t going to let anyone get in the way of what he desperately wanted.
He catches on the wing, turns the corner on John Starks and runs into Charles Oakley. He changes direction, ostensibly heading back to the perimeter, and at the last second he turns back toward the rim, catching both Starks and Oak completely off guard. Ewing is there, and almost as if he’s annoyed that the Knicks are actually going to make him work for the bucket, he releases nearly seven years of frustration on the top of Ewing’s head.
Jordan had such a tight space to work with between Oak and the baseline, and his ability to collect the strength to elevate after tight-roping the baseline is as impressive as anything he’s done in his career. The Bulls would sweep the Knicks in the series and only lose two games in the entire postseason. This play set the tone for Chicago’s first title run and essentially the tone for the rest of Jordan’s career.
21. Dwyane Wade over Kendrick Perkins
This might be the most athletic play of Dwyane Wade’s career. It’s not just the dunk. It’s not just that the dunk was over Kendrick Perkins. It’s not just that the dunk came out of a spin move. It’s not just that the spin move led to a two-handed jam. It’s that he made it all look completely effortless. Wade came out of that spin move and exploded toward the rim and seemingly took a second to himself midair to appreciate his work before it was finished.
Really, just watch how he hangs in the air for half a beat before deciding to throw down the dunk. To even get to the rim, he has to blow by James Harden, spin around Serge Ibaka and go through Perkins (that Thunder team… man).
What happens after the dunk is the best part about the moment. Wade comes down and pushes Joel Anthony out of his way with a look that says, “don’t [expletive] touch me right now” and then does… the cabbage patch? Yup, the cabbage patch.
The weirdest part of the dunk is the reaction from his teammates who are all business. No one seems overly excited or shocked that Wade just pulled off one of the most aesthetically pleasant moves we’ve seen in the history of the game. LeBron James just gives him a simple slap of the hands while the rest of the team simply stands and applauds like, “good job, Flash.” What a weird era of Miami Heat basketball.
20. Stromile Swift over Tyrus Thomas
Stromile Swift had legs made out of pogo sticks and a penchant for hurting basketball rims and anyone who got in between him and the destruction he was born to deliver.
On one fateful night, it was Tyrus Thomas who got in Swift’s way, and Swift did all he could to save Thomas from finding himself on one of his posters. With Thomas closing out on Swift, he received a picture perfect pump fake and watched Swift blow by him. Joakim Noah did a great job of pretending to contest the dunk, but Swift pretty much had an open lane to do his damage.
But no, Thomas had to find a way to recover and jump at the very last second. When Swift begins to cock the ball behind his head, he doesn’t know that Thomas is right on his hip thinking about committing suicide. As he starts to bring it down with the torque of a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, only then does he know that it’s not just the rim that he’s going to destroy, but Thomas, too.
Turn the volume up on this one. You can hear the rim whimper in pain after Swift’s unruly dunk, you’ll feel worse for the iron than you will for Thomas. Nothing better than watching a little LSU on LSU action followed by the Stro Dove celebration.
19. Blake Griffin over Timofey Mozgov
There’s something about Blake Griffin dunking on people that kind of feels like he wants something worse than a poster to happen to anyone who gets between him and the rim. Look at his eyes in the immediate moments after he destroys someone, he’s almost inhumane, possessed. And it all began with the dunk over Timofey Mozgov.
The immediate reaction was sheer terror from everyone. Blake’s teammates, Mozgov, his teammates, the fans in the arena, the coaches, the media, the trainers, you, me, your mother. Everyone was terrified because if Griffin could put someone on a poster without even touching the rim, he could literally do it to anyone in any given situation. Attempted murder coming to a city near you if we don’t find a way to stop this Griffin guy.
Fortunately for us, DeAndre Jordan had always been there to get between Griffin and the rest of the world until he came back to his senses after these moments (who is going to stop Griffin now?). When not possessed, Griffin is one of the nicest and most humble guys to interact with off the court, but after he destroys someone like he did to Mozgov, he’s the last person you’re going to want to be around.
Griffin has a long body count from his time on court, but this dunk over Mozgov is kind of what put the NBA on notice. Leave the paint when Griffin has the rock or risk your life, and too many guys have suffered the consequences of the latter.
18. Paul George over Birdman
The 2013 Eastern Conference Finals kind of let us know who Paul George was and was not in postseason play. It’s a little unfair to judge a player because of his extreme peaks and extreme valleys, but that’s kind of been the trend for George in the postseason, including this year in which he ended Game 6’s loss to the Utah Jazz with a mere five points on 16 shots.
The lows are rough to watch, but buddy, let me tell you, PG’s highs are as good as they get. One of those highs came in a duel with LeBron James in Game 2 of the 2013 ECF win which his 22-2-6 helped Indiana tie the series at 1-1 despite James dropping 36-8-3. The highlight of that game, and really, the series was the monster dunk George threw down on Chris Anderson.
PG was isolated against LeBron at the top of the perimeter with time winding down in the quarter. After a short hesitation dribble, he blew by James and pretty much punched the ball through the rim with Anderson getting the worse of all of it. The best part of watching Birdman play is how fearless he was, the worst part of being fearless is that, sometimes, bad things happen.
The dunk was so brutal that, James, in the heat of a huge game in Miami, walked over to George and dapped him up as teams were walking to their benches. There are few things that show respect for an opponent than giving him props for destroying your teammate in the middle of the game.
17. LeBron James over Jason Terry
Some dunks are just way funnier than others, and LeBron James throwing down this alley-oop over Jason Terry is one of the funniest dunks ever.
The sequence begins when Dwyane Wade picks Terry’s pocket near half court and in a single motion flips the ball to Almario Chalmers. Chalmers tosses the ball ahead to Norris Cole who then lifts it up for a trailing LeBron James. In the midst of all of this, Terry is alone on a green island trying to defend a 4-on-1 fastbreak that started fewer than 40 feet away from the basket.
The execution saw four men touch the ball without the ball touching the floor and ended with James catching a lob and Terry’s body mid-air. Terry, who turned from Cole to James immediately knows the end is near and does everything he can to protect himself from a 6-8 monster coming full speed down the lane with little to no regard for his health.
Terry ends up going from perpendicular to parallel to the floor in less than a second, and as he lays there wondering where it all went wrong, he gets to feel the sheer intensity of James who is just glaring at him for simply breathing the air in the TD Garden. The whole thing played out like those old NBA Street games with James soaring for the finish.
16. Scottie Pippen over Patrick Ewing
Patrick Ewing was consistently getting the worst from the old Bulls and Knicks rivalry. Despite how great Jordan’s dunk over Ewing was, Scottie Pippen might have done him one better.
This is dunk is a case study on why it might be overrated to get back on defense. After Chicago starts the break after a blocked shot, you can see Ewing on the left wing turn and sprint to get back on defense, and is in the paint with just enough time to turn and see Pippen coming full speed ahead ready to drop one on Ewings flattop — and boy was it rude.
Pippen’s momentum carried him right into the body of the falling Ewing, and instead of stopping and turning away, Pippen steps over Ewing and then talks a bit of trash to Spike Lee sitting courtside wearing a John Starks jersey.
“I said something that I wouldn’t want to repeat today,” Pippen said of his words to Lee. “But if you could get a professional lip reader maybe he can figure it out.”
Ewing’s Knicks could never find a way to get past Chicago in the postseason, and demoralizing plays like these — in the Garden no less — is a huge reason why the Bulls were just too much for the Knicks.
15. Shaquille O’Neal over Chris Dudley
Shaquille O’Neal in his prime was as unstoppable a force as they come, and Chris Dudley knows first hand what Shaq at his best (or worst?) can do to an unsuspecting big.
Dudley wasn’t first to get yammed on by Shaq, and he definitely wasn’t the last, but he was the only one to be so frustrated with a Shaq dunk that he picked up the ball and threw it at him.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t just the dunk that set Dudley off, but the push after the dunk that sent him stumbling into the cameramen at Staples, but the push felt almost natural, as if Shaq’s hands couldn’t have possibly done anything else but push him in that situation.
Look at Shaq’s footwork before the dunk though. A few dribbles to set up a quick spin move, using the momentum to get his large body off the ground and through Dudley.
Also look at Dudley’s face after he throws the ball at Shaq, he’s almost smirking in the aftermath as if to say, “I probably shouldn’t have done that, but golly, I’m sure glad that I did.”
The dunk is both ridiculous powerful and hilarious. Most poster dunks have an enormous amount of replay value, but this one sits near the top because of who Shaq was in his prime and the way Dudley reacted. Larry Johnson immediately backs up Dudley, complaining to the ref after seeing Shaq push him and holding him back after he throws the ball. Good theater all around.
14. Tracy McGrady over Shawn Bradley
Shawn Bradley got dunked on quite a few times during the course of his career, but what Tracy McGrady did to him in the 2005 postseason is the one that stands out the most. It was Game 2 of their first-round matchup against Dallas and McGrady didn’t just baptize Bradley, but he absolutely abused Dallas all night with 28 points, 10 assists, 8 boards, 3 steals and 3 blocks. As that just wasn’t enough, he drilled the game-winning jumper to put Houston up 2-0 in the series (Houston would lose the series in 7).
Before we get into Bradley, can we just take a brief moment to appreciate the red carpet that Dirk Nowitzki laid out for McGrady to drive baseline? Nowitzki is shading McGrady on the right to force him baseline, but he nearly has a foot out of bounds on the sideline before McGrady makes his move, there is no way anyone is going to get back in front of their assignment positioned like this, especially not Nowitzki.
Anyway, McGrady takes full advantage of the lane Nowitzki gives him, elevates off two feet and lays the boom on Bradley, who was set to retire at the end of the season.
“It’s possible this will be his last year in the league,” McGrady began when talking about the dunk. “So uh, let me send him a going away present.” That present, of course, was geting obliterated at the rim with one of Kevin Harlan’s best calls of his career as the soundtrack.
“Here comes McGrady… OOOOOHHHHH HE JUST SUCKED THE GRAVITY RIGHT OUT OF THE BUILDING.”
13. Dominique Wilkins over Larry Bird
Don’t jump, Larry. Larry. Larry. Don’t jump. Larry? LARRY? Larry nooooooooooooo!
That had to be the inner monologue of every Celtics fan when they saw Larry Bird staring down the breaking Dominique Wilkins knowing that the kid had a lifetime supply of bounce.
Bird jumped, Wilkins flew and put Larry on his behind wondering whether it was worth it to talk endless trash to the rookie forward. Look at how Wilkins springs off the ground. The liftoff was effortless, and he cocked the ball behind his back — not head — for effect. Bird came tumbling down and just sat there for a second, arms wrapped around his knees just… embarrassed.
The best part of this video on YouTube is that there is a comment from three years ago that just says “POOR LARRY” in all caps, and with a dunk this brutal, you can’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for Bird who looks absolutely crushed that he didn’t quite have it when he met with Wilkins at the rim.
Bird would later get revenge, dropping his career high 60 points on Nique’s head in 85 and giving Nique’s Hawks 20 points in the fourth in that epic ‘88 Game 7 that went to Bird despite Wilkins 47. Bird took one last shot at Wilkins at his statue unveiling saying that Wilkins’ statue surely wouldn’t be of him in a defensive stance.
Bird was right, but he had little room to talk considering Wilkins’ most memorable play was him giving Bird the business.
12. John Starks over Horace Grant and Michael Jordan
The Chicago Bulls didn’t have a monopoly on classic moments from this rivalry. Both Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen had an epic dunk over Patrick Ewing, but John Starks turned the corner on BJ Armstrong and absolutely destroyed Jordan and Horace Grant.
There’s something fun about guys who get off the ground in a hurry and Starks jumps off the MSG hardwood like a cartoon rocket ship ready to get from Earth to the moon in a matter of seconds. The acceleration rate was unmatched by anyone Chicago could have thrown at him and the result was one of the best moments in NBA history.
Baseline jams should have their own corner in the Basketball Hall of Fame because some of the most epic dunks have come with a guy doing as much damage as possible with as little room as possible.
Starks dunk gets extra credit because of the moment. The Knicks were nursing a three-point lead with just under a minute to play when Starks hammered home the dunk, putting them up five with the entire crowd at MSG losing their collective minds.
Jordan didn’t get bested often during his playing years, but Starks got the best of the entire Bulls squad on that single play that will go down as one of the most memorable dunks in NBA history.
11. Vince Carter over Dikembe Mutombo
Vince Carter gave Dikembe Mutombo a brief stare down after dunking on one of the greatest shot blockers in the world, then just ran back on defense. All business, no celebration, no games.
You see, dunking is what Vince Carter did for a living, everyone else on the floor plays basketball and had the occasional opportunity to dunk. We tried to tell you that two-footed baseline dunks were something special, and you have to look no further than Tracy McGrady’s immediate reaction to understand what they can do to the viewer in the moment.
T-Mac, no stranger to mid-air baptisms, was damn near beside himself as Carter angrily ran back on defense as if his work just wasn’t quite up to his own standards. Carter was interviewed about the dunk years later and you just have to see the smug smirk in the middle of describing what transpired.
“Once I hit him I just felt like I kept going higher and higher. When he was on his way down I was still on my way up,” Carter said with that smug smirk. “I got ‘em.”
Carter would admit in the same interview that, “for that one dunk, he probably blocked my dunks five or six times before that.” That’s the thing with all-time great dunkers, though. They’re eventually going to get you.
10. Michael Jordan over Dikembe Mutombo
Dikembe Mutombo finally got a taste of his own medicine when Michael Jordan infamously taunted the lumbering big man with his own signature celebration. There was much more to Jordan giving Mutombo the finger wag than just MJ’s arrogance, Mutombo told him it would never happen.
In the locker room before the all-star game, Jordan and Mutombo were going at it about whether Jordan had dunked on Mutombo yet. “Mike, come on, man. Be for real, you haven’t got me yet,” said an almost annoyed Mutombo. You could see Jordan racking his brain trying to remember a time in which he climbed Mt. Mutombo.
The Hawks’ center was adamant after Jordan admits that he hadn’t got him yet “this year,” Mutombo says, “you haven’t got me in six years — why don’t you just go ahead and say it.” To add fuel to the flames, Mutombo tells Patrick Ewing that it’s never going to happen.
Later that season, Atlanta comes into the United Center and Jordan has the rock in the left corner with Mutombo under the rim. He dumps the ball into Luc Longley and cuts baseline. Longley feeds him with a perfect pass and Jordan elevates and throws down what may have been the most satisfying dunk of his career.
As he backpedals to the other side of the floor, he wags his finger at Mutombo letting him know that no one tells him what he’s never going to do — especially a big man who spends so much time under the rim.
9. Dr. J rocking the cradle over Michael Cooper
This is one of those dunks that belong in the pantheon simply because it was Dr. J throwing down a dunk that would have scored highly in a dunk contest without the poster.
The iconography of the NBA is often defined by singular moments that live on beyond the life of a player’s career. We don’t lift these moments up largely because they transcend the zeitgeist because of the timeless beauty of their nature.
For Julius Erving, this was his moment and Michael Cooper was the canvas in which Erving would render his masterpiece. This is the kind of moment people would travel thousands of miles to see hanging up on the walls of the MET just to say, “I saw it and it was even more beautiful in person.”
The rocking of the cradle, the one-handed windmill, the power and tenacity in the finish, the disregard for Cooper’s livelihood — all of it works together to create what makes the NBA so incredible. Grace, elegance, power, in a neat package of an unreal, once-in-a-generation athlete who would lay the foundation for those who came after to build on.
With no Dr. J, there is no Jordan. And with no Jordan, can a list like this exist? Probably, but it wouldn’t be the same. For every advanced metric used to help us understand the game, we continue to revert back to the game’s simplicity when we want to feel something. Watch that Dr. J dunk again and tell us you don’t feel something.
8. Kevin Johnson over Hakeem Olajuwon
If nothing else, you could just feel the emotion from everyone on the floor after Kevin Johnson threw down one of the most savage dunks of all time on the top of Hakeem Olajuwon’s head.
There was this guy named Michael Jordan who was suddenly out of the NBA, leaving the league with a throne with no one sitting on top of it. The Phoenix Suns and the Houston Rockets both believed they had the squads to win the title with Chicago slightly less formidable. The Suns were in the Finals the season before and the Rockets had Olajuwon, the all-everything center who no one could find a way to stop.
If you can’t stop Olajuwon, you better create opportunities in which he can’t stop you. And that’s exactly what KJ did in Game 4 of the Western Conference semis. Once again, we have a two-footed baseline jam in which Johnson flew toward the rim with his left shoulder leaning in, protecting himself and the ball and just hammered down a dunk that looked like it hurt.
Olajuwon picked up his fifth foul and ended up on one of the best posters of all time, but the Rockets wouldn’t just go on to win the series, but they’d win the NBA Finals (and the next one, too). For Johnson, if you can’t beat them, at least yam one on their head one time for posterity.
7. Tom Chambers over Mark Jackson
Look, there’s no one who ever watched this clip for the first time and were surprised that Tom Chambers dunked on Mark Jackson. Sometimes it makes sense to take one for the team, and other times you just have to make a business decision. Jackson chose the former and it turned into one of the most shocking dunks of all time.
The surprising part of the Tom Chambers dunk is not the fact that it happened, but that Chambers looked like he had a 52-inch vert in the process. He takes off, makes contact with Jackson and it looks like his body decides that gravity doesn’t matter and adds a few more feet of elevation for effect.
Jackson pretty much disintegrates into the painted area as Chambers throws down the dunk, and it’s Jackson who picks up the foul — and Chambers absolutely loves it.
“It was one of those things to where I didn’t have time to stop and try to go around him, I had to just try and get myself to the rim,” said Chambers years after the dunk. “I was able to do that and I literally jumped over Mark Jackson. He tried to protect himself, and that gave me even more of a boost because I know I had to kind of duck to not hit my head when I was coming down from that dunk.
The dunk was so epic, the Phoenix Suns made a mini bronze statue of the dunk that doubles as the absolute most hilarious sub-stories to a dunk ever.
6. LeBron James over Damon Jones
No one has ever looked more happily satisfied after a dunk than LeBron James did after collecting Damon Jones’ soul — and the best part about this dunk is that it’s entirely Damon Jones fault that Damon Jones got dunked on.
For a lot of the most brutal poster dunks, the guy who gets the worst of it probably didn’t deserve it. Some big man is doing his job, slides over to help and boom, poster. There is a turnover and a wing hustles to get back and is sent stumbling into the cameramen because he got dunked on. For this one, Damon Jones made a bad pass that LeBron picked off, he got back on defense trying to make up for his mistake, he jumped with LeBron as a result for getting back on a bad pass that he made.
Mid dunk you can see Jones start to curl up in the fetal position. After the dunk, James is staring him down as Jones is rubbing the side of his head. The camera flashes to Shaq, who looks pissed off to have had to watch such a terrible sequence from one of his teammates and then it cuts to James, who walks off with the biggest smile on his face.
The Heat would win the game by 12 points, but good lord Damon Jones damn near lost his life that night to a man wearing a mask. The best part of the video is seeing a hyped Robert Tractor Taylor after the dunk. RIP.
5. Terrence Ross over Kenneth Faried
At the time of this ridiculous poster dunk, Terrence Ross was the NBA’s reigning Slam Dunk champion and was delivering on what you’d expect from the champ every time he had an open lane to the basket.
This time, though, there would be no open lane. Just a running start and the kind of gall it takes to even attempt to challenge a guy affectionately called The Manimal. Kenneth Faried didn’t make it easy on Ross. If you look at some of the photos from when both guys were mid-air before Ross finishes him off, it looks like there is no possible way that Ross is going to pull off the dunk.
Faried goes straight up with both hands and elevates just as high as Ross does. Ross’ saving grace was the angle that he took, allowing him to slide past Faried instead of having to go through him, which at the time, there was probably no way in hell Ross was going through the Manimal.
Regardless of how, Ross got there and the dunk was absolutely incredible. The dunk was so good that Patrick Truby of Deadspin animated it, and it’s become one of the coolest pieces of internet art out there.
4. Dwight Howard over Jrue Holiday
2011 Dwight Howard and 2018 Dwight Howard are two completely different people. Aside from back injuries that took away his ability to become Superman on the court, the public perception of Howard has changed dramatically since the days of him leading the NBA in All-Star votes twice in a four-year stretch.
And during that stretch, he embarrassed many a folk who thought they could jump with one of the most athletic centers of all time. Jrue Holiday may have gotten the worst of Howard’s terror with a bit of risky business jumping without fully knowing the ramifications of his decisions.
We’ve seen a few guys get caught between a dunk and a hoops sunken place, but most guys who die via lob know what’s coming and make the decision anyway. Holiday was just running back on defense like a point guard is wont to do, and Howard spends the entire trip to the other side of the floor on Holiday’s back shoulder.
Jrue has no idea that Howard is already on his way up when he decides to jump for the ball and Howard makes him pay for his lack of awareness. The worst part of this for Holiday is that Spencer Hawes was there, too. But Hawes didn’t really have the timing or hangtime to get the worst of the dunk. He’s already out of bounds by the time Howard catches it and Holiday is regretting ever lacing up a pair of sneakers.
3. JR Smith over Gary Neal
Kevin Harlan exists to call amazing dunks because his call of JR Smith dunking over Gary Neal is an all-time great for an all-time great dunk with a lesson for the kids: Don’t try to take charges when high fliers are coming at you full speed with the ball.
Neal did everything he was taught to do. He was more than two passes away, so he had a foot in the paint in case he had to slide over to help. Ime Udoka gets beat off the dribble and Neal slides over. He sets his feet and absorbs the contact. Unfortunately, the refs decided that he got there a fraction of a second late and the contact was pure, unadulterated destruction.
As Smith throws it down, Harlan goes wild. “JR SMITH… WE JUST SAW A MAN FLY… RIDE ‘EM COWBOY!”
Smith puts his hand to his ear to listen to the crowd and Carmelo Anthony is on the bench with what can only be described as “a face so satisfied with what he’s seen, excitement is optional.”
Fortunately for Gary Neal, Reggie Miller calls him “George Hill” on the broadcast. So whenever this video is played without a title in the future, some casual fan just might believe it was Hill who got dunked on instead of Neal. Silver linings!
Whether it was Neal or Hill, this was one of the greatest moments in JR Smith’s insanely wild and hilarious career.
<2. Kobe over Steve Nash
Just like Gary Neal, Steve Nash got the absolute worst of a play just because he did what he was taught to do. After Lamar Odom scrambled for a rebound after a missed shot by Luke Walton, he found a cutting Kobe Bryant who was looking for blood. Steve Nash was just sitting there looking like he needed to be dunked on, and Bryant delivered.
What’s important to note here is that this season was arguably the best of Bryant’s career. He averaged 35-5-4 and led a team to the seventh seed whose second best player was Lamar Odom and the third best player was, well, no one. Bryant would eventually lose the MVP to Nash and the series to the Suns in 7 after a bizarre no-show in the second half of the series-deciding game.
However, for this one moment, Bryant was on top of the world and helping close out a Game 2 win that would give the Lakers home court as they head back to Los Angeles. After the dunk, both Ronny Turiaf and Andrew Bynum look incredibly confused (maybe everyone in the area thought it was a charge) while Odom is repeatedly making the and-1 signal with his hands.
This is pre-Kobe jaw, so all we really got out of Bean was him hanging on the rim after the dunk and a fist pump. Not that we needed more, but these kinds of dunks usually bring out the best (or worst) of the guys who throw them down.
1. Taj Gibson over Dwyane Wade
There wasn’t much teams could do about the Miami Heat era that included LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. The trio went to four consecutive NBA Finals, winning two of them and unleashed an avalanche of highlight plays that no one who was watching the NBA at the time will ever forget.
For Heat fans, there were a few moments that they’d love to forget, though, and one of those is the time Taj Gibson unleashed the boom of booms on the top of Dwyane Wade’s head. Wade, who has made a career out of making the rest of the NBA look bad, got a taste of his own medicine when he got caught as the sole defender back on a Chicago fastbreak.
Gibson didn’t just dunk on Wade, he used every functioning muscle in his body to catch on the run and explode off the floor for a devastating two-handed jam. If there was any tension while Gibson was in the air, he let it all out after the dunk as he roared for the crowd at the United Center.
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You have never and will never see Dwyane Wade look as dejected as he did in the immediate moments after realizing that he did, in fact, get dunked on by Taj Gibson. Reggie Miller acts as if he’s never seen a dunk before following Gibson’s play, and lets the whole world know the obvious: “It is the Eastern Conference Finals” in his first words after the dunk. This is what happens when you’re speechless in a position in which you’re required to speak. Gibson did that.