OK, look. I’m not saying Dennis Smith Jr. should’ve won the dunk contest. His first dunk had plenty of room for improvement and he paid for it. But what I will say is that he easily had the best dunk of the night with his second dunk. I mean, look at this.
Dennis Smith Jr.’s final dunk should have been higher than a 50
This dunk should’ve shut the contest down.
We can talk about Vince Carter jerseys from Donovan Mitchell or double-tap dunks from Larry Nance Jr., but none of them are topping what Smith did.
We have never seen anything like it.
The Mavericks’ rookie point guard pulled off a reverse 360 dunk through his legs. Oh, AND he switched hands in the middle. That reads like a lot, but that’s because it actually was.
Let’s look at this in slow motion.
He got a 50 for this dunk despite missing twice before he actually got the attempt down. That’s how good it actually was.
Now, we’ve seen reverse dunks before. Those are good, but they aren’t particularly special. And we’ve seen players go through the legs before — most notably this dunk by Jason Richardson in 2004.
But to combine the two? That’s insane. And it’s something we should appreciate, even though we won’t because he didn’t win.
It’s a shame that this amazing dunk had to go to waste, but it is what it is. Maybe next year, Dennis.
