First NBA Slam Dunk Contest

One of the most exciting moments in basketball is the dunk. It have become very popular in today's game, and one of the most popular events in all the NBA is the Slam Dunk Contest. And where did it all start and how did it begin? Let's get into that today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive in its sports history. Every day, when we think about the NBA All Star weekend, what even overshadows the actual All Star Game nowadays is the Slam Dunk Contest. It's been a staple of the event for many years, but it actually did not start till the nineteen eighty four season, and its origins actually go beyond that. To truly know the start of the slam Dunk contests, we have to go back to nineteen seventy six, when the first Slam Dunk contest was held for the struggling ABA. Now, the ABA was an upstart lead featuring Hall of famers such as George Gervin, David Thomas in of course doctor J. Julius Irving. Though the league had stars, financially, it was very hard to compete with the established NBA could play their stars well, but couldn't afford to pay regular role players as much, and many owners were feeling the challenges, and so they were close to a merger with the NBA, which involved multiple teams joining the NBA that we still know and love today, such as the Indiana Pacers and the s Antonio Spurs and the Denver Nuggets. But to do that, they still had a seem like they were still challenging the NBA. They did so with doing different things, such as having a three line and with their All Star competition. In nineteen seventy six, they added a dunk contest, hoping this would bring a lot more attention to the league and make them seem more viable for a merger. On that night, they had five men competing, the Julius Irving, Artist Gilmore, George Gerving, Larry Kenyon, and David Thompson, and they had multiple setups for the dunks. They were gonna have five dunks each within two minutes, showing different abilities in their dunking. One of the events was having a dunk begins somewhere near the foul line. The thinking was that they would start close to the foul line and not have much of a running start to get their dunk, showing how much of a burst they had from a standing position. But Doctor J took this to mean I can jump from the free throw line and dunk, and that's exactly what he did, a dunk that's so memorable to this day. It was a precursor to Michael Jordan's dunk from the foul line as well. This stole the show and made it a staple for the ABA, but when they merged with the NBA, the competition was a challenge. They were able to really bring it back until nineteen eighty four, with the new commissioner, David Stern wanting to wrote basketball any way could beyond just the regular game, so he instituted the dunk contest part of the All Star Game again for the NBA, giving us their first NBA dunk contests, and Doctor J, now being in the NBA, joined in. The contest featured other Hall of famers such as Michael Cooper, Clyde Drexler, Ralph Sampson, and Dominic Wilkins, but there was a lusher known player named Larry Nance who actually took home the Basketball to Contest trophy that year. And over the years we've had many great dunks in the Duncant. We remember Michael Jordan, as we mentioned earlier, Vince Carter, Blake Griffin, and every year a new player emerges and makes a name for himself being crowned the dunk Champion. And it's not a tradition that's going to go away anytime soon. Thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please give us a like or a fault wherever you're listening so you can get more Daily Sports History because we'll be back tomorrow with even more so you never run out of sports history.