The Indiana Pacers’ Glenn Robinson III won the NBA Dunk Contest on Saturday in New Orleans, sealing the dunk contest with a reverse slam over several people. Robinson started with the first 50 of the night and finished strong against Derrick Jones Jr., who had advanced into the final round with him.
NBA Dunk Contest 2017 results: Glenn Robinson III crowned after Aaron Gordon falls out in the 1st round
The young Pacers forward took the title.
Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
After having one of the best Slam Dunk Contest performances ever last year, despite losing the title to Zach LaVine, Aaron Gordon surprisingly lost in the first round. He needed several attempts to throw down his drone dunk and couldn’t land a through-the-legs attempt on his second dunk. Gordon, who has been injured this year, just looked like he didn’t have the same hops as last year.
Like Gordon’s performance, the entire dunk contest didn’t live up to last year’s magical one. Most of the dunks felt like variations of each other, with players jumping over people to dunk. In fact, Robinson’s winning dunk was the same one John Wall did in 2014 — although to be fair, Robinson did it by jumping over two more people. Here’s Robinson’s dunk.
Jones Jr. might have had the best dunk of the night, dunking off the side of the backboard through his legs.
But his “it’s over” slash was premature — he couldn’t nail his final dunk and Robinson took the title.
DeAndre Jordan, the fourth participant, had two average dunks but didn’t stand out. While Gordon’s drone attempt was creative, he needed too many attempts before throwing it done for it to really be an effective slam.
Look: dunking is already really hard, and the expectations for these contests are sky high. It’s a shame this one fell flat, but it happens. Congratulations to Robinson, who was good even if the rest of it was average.
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