Obi Toppin won the Dunk contest today after putting up some really good dunks. The problem was his competitors didn’t put up much of a fight. The 4 contestants were Obi Toppin from the New York Knicks, Jalen Green, the rookie from the Houston Rockets, Juan Toscano-Anderson from the Golden State Warriors, and Cole Anthony from the Orlando Magic.
The first set of dunks went well for everyone but Jalen Green. Green struggled to put up the dunk he wanted after being assisted by teammate Josh Christopher. Eventually, he changed up his dunk and scored 38 points. Cole Anthony had a windmill dunk in Timberland’s( a very sturdy shoe in which it is difficult to jump) and scored 40. Juan Toscano had 44 points after he windmilled over teammate Andrew Wiggins. Obi Toppin also had 44 of a behind-the-back dunk, leaping over someone among the spectators.
Green had the most impressive dunk for the second dunk in the first round with a 360 between the legs. He scored 45 and had the highest score in the second round. But it wasn’t enough as Toscano followed up with a 43 point 360 dunk and Toppin scored 46 after he made a between the legs reverse dunk throwing the ball off the glass. The Finals were between Toppin and Toscano.
Toscano started the final round trying to replicate Vince Carter’s iconic forearm inside the basket dunk from the 2000’s dunk contest. Unfortunately, he fell short and couldn’t elevate enough to complete the dunk. It was scored like a normal dunk and he only got 39 points for it. Toppin missed his first 2 tries trying to dunk the ball off the glass but then he changed the dunk to a between the legs dunk off the glass. Toscano couldn’t make his second dunk and only scored the lowest possible points 30 (the lowest judges can give is 6 points).
The stage was set up for an easy win for Toppin and he pulled off the first dunk he tried, the dunk of the glass. He scored a contest-high 47 on that dunk and it was pretty special. The 5 judges were NBA legends, Dominique Wilkins, Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving, David Robinson-The Admiral, Clyde ‘The Glide’ Drexler, and Isiah Thomas.
While Toppin did have some good dunks and a very innovative last dunk that we hadn’t seen before, overall the dunk contest did not have the excitement it usually had. One reason was the lack of superstars in the contest while the other is the high number of misses on the attempts. Commentator and NBA legend Reggie Miller even suggested that they move the 3 point contest to the end instead of the dunk contest because of lacklustre it was. In the end, Obi deserved to win and went home as the dunk contest champion.
