The two men you see busting out the Nae Nae above, Nick Cannon, Drake and Nelly were perhaps the most excited during last night's All-Star Weekend festivities. A lot of other people had a mixed reaction, particularly toward the Slam Dunk Contest.
This year's lineup was the most promising in a while. Paul George pulled a Slam Dunk Contest-winning dunk during a game, Terrence Ross is the defending champion who kills Manimals, and players like John Wall and Damian Lillard are big names. They could've delivered but they never got a chance to. The new format essentially had six dunkers doing a freestyle round that had little hype from the crowd, and only one individual dunk from each competitor in the next round. That was it. One dunk and your main event is over. The NBA decided to take a chance with the format when it had the potential to have the best dunk contest in years. Did the idea of a conference winning a dunk contest look that good on paper?
John Wall unquestionably had the night's best dunk, but even that wasn't enough to totally satisfy Twitter. Just look at Sunday morning's trending hashtag: #ThingsBetterThanTheDunkContest. Count the D-League Contestas one of them. There was a few (very few) folks who did like the contest, however. Here are a few of Twitter's reactions:
If you ever have to look up the phrase "too many cooks in the kitchen" think about the 2014 Slam Dunk Contest. Fun should not be complicated
Spike Lee, what'd you think of the slam dunk contest format? pic.twitter.com/cePjYNqPSe
My reaction on the slam dunk contest pic.twitter.com/Ac9QnwMNud
And you wonder why @KingJames doesn't want to enter the NBA Slam Dunk Contest...
Slam Dunk contest went from being better than the actual ASG to....worse than a halfcourt shot+layup contest w/WNBA stars and Dell Curry
The Slam Dunk Contest just became You Got Served
Slam dunk contest wasnt bad but should get rid of it maybe add a 1 on 1 game
Slam dunk contest ain't back. Bruh it's dead.. The best dunkers didn't even compete vs each other . But it's nick fault #StopNickCannon2014
Gotta say this. If y’all saw some of those pre-MJ slam dunk contests, you’d be happy with what we have now.
