NBA All-Star Weekend: 5 Ways to Improve Dunk Competition

Feb 15, 2014; New Orleans, LA, USA; Washington Wizards guard John Wall (2) celebrates with Toronto Raptors guard Terrence Ross (31) and Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (24) after the 2014 NBA All Star dunk contest at Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /

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4. Establish Olympic-style scoring

Feb 15, 2014; New Orleans, LA, USA; American actor Nick Cannon interviews Washington Wizards guard John Wall (2) while Indiana Pacers forward Paul George (24) and Toronto Raptors guard Terrence Ross (31) look on during the 2014 NBA All Star dunk contest at Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /

The scoring would be fairly simple once we know what the dunks are going to be. We could still have the celebrity judges, but they’d be able to score on the difficulty of the dunk, the presentation and the actual technical performance. If McLemore were to hit that dunk, it would be a 10 for difficulty, a 10 for performance and if he came out with Shaq and did that whole schtick, perhaps a 10 for presentation.

The dunks contest is obviously very subjective, but we can make it a bit more objective with a scoring system like this. The other sports do it and it seems to work awfully well. You wouldn’t think the old-timers would have much in the way of sour grapes towards the current crop, so let’s give it a whirl next year.

Having a team vs. team aspect of things was a bad idea. Let everyone compete against everyone. It’s not a team competition, it’s an individual competition.