Although I doubt any marquee players will volunteer, a 1v1 would be DOPE. Undisputed 1v1 tourney was a lot of fun to watch. 

The dunk contest went downhill because all the stars are afriad of getting embarrassed. They almost certainly wont play in a 1 v 1 game.

I can’t see stars agreeing to do 1v1, but could see them doing 2v2, especially if they could bring a non-All Star teammate with them

They should play BASEketball.

Everyone knows it’ll be fixed by getting the stars to do it. No one knows how to get the stars to do it - other than money, and no one wants to pay for it.

There are no more dunks left man. Outside of Mac Mcclung literally not a single dunk since 2020 has been good

Jaden and Ant 2v2 would go hard

For the slam dunk competition, they should do a game of horse where the players try to recreate an iconic dunk from history.

They’ll show on the Jumbotron an iconic dunk like carter’s 360 windmill and then each player has to do it. Whoever cant do it on first try, gets a letter.

They should let scalabrini host his scallenge and get fans to play 1v1 against NBA players. 

Fix the dunk contest is simple.

Instead of focusing on just style, each player gets a chance to 1v1 dunk on Rudy Gobert. They take turns trying to posterize him, best poster wins.

Why does Rudy do it? We give him $100k for every dunk he blocks, also pride

Why do stars do it? Competition and everyone fucking HAAAATES Rudy Gobert for some reason

Scrap the dunk contest already. Replace it with something else.

Literally 3x3 an Olympic sport is right fucking there, god the fucks are dumb

Just take the dunk contest away for a few years and give people time to miss it, then when/if it comes back there’ll be hype and you maybe can get some bigger names involved. It’s also been 42 straight years of dunk contests, too, so I think at some point it’s just diminishing returns on creativity and originality for some of the things guys can do.

As an MSU fan there is only one dude that can fix the dunk contest and that is Coen Carr.

Also people want to see a Ja, Zion, Duren, Ant dunk contest. No disrespect.

Unrivaled 1 v 1 was so good. Hope they do it.

All-Star weekend needs a 1v1 tournament, everyone seemingly wants it. Why is the NBA so slow to implement these things.

Naz Reid in the 1v1 tournament would go crazy

bro just give us non-basketball games/competitions lol. i wanna see them playing dodgeball or kickball or some shit. at least that way it’d be fun even if the players barely try.

2 v 2 tournament of all the teams. It can start Saturday, we can fill out brackets, half court to 21, win by two.

There will be a Cinderella team everyone will get behind.

Alternative idea:

Just make all-star selection an honor, without the game. Then instead of the game, each team sends 3 players of their choosing to compete in a weekend long tournament. This would be so cool, like real life NBA jam (for those old enough)

Why are all-stars not obligated to participate in all-star activities, why are they allowed to opt out? If they want to opt-out then let them opt out of their all-star status all together. If they want the all-star title for your contract qualifications then they should be required to participate. Let the choice be whether or not they want to be an all-star in the first place, not whether or not they want to actually participate after getting the title for their contracts

They missed the mark on this. This was a good idea that people have suggested for decades. The problem has always been “Stars won’t try/participate because they don’t want to get embarrassed”.

The best time to introduce this was 2020 and call it “The Kobe Tournament” or something. It fits into Kobe’s role as an ISO scorer and like the all star tournament that year players would be motivated to be the first person to win the “Kobe Bryant award”.

The counter argument is “Why would they care the year after that?” which is fair, but that’s an easier problem to answer than “how do we get them to care for the first tournament in 2027”. If everyone cares the 1st year then we’ll get a great player as the inaugural champion, then next year SOMEONE will want to take that person down and be the new champ. It’s not like the ASG where if 1 guy is trying you can’t tell, if 1 guy is trying and no one else is then that guy will embarrass everyone 1 on 1. If you care the first year and don’t sign up the next year then people will say you got beat and are ducking the competition.

I just don’t see how you convince people to sign up and try that first year, once you do that it’s easier to keep up the energy year after year.

Make it like the olympics. Every team has to send someone for each event to represent the team, and give them medals.

And that one player has to do all the events. dunk contest, 3 pt contest, skills challenge etc

long overdue for the 1v1. As for the dunk contest stars or even notable nba player simply don’t want to do it. Yeah, we’ve seen almost every dunk, but it doesn’t matter how good the dunks are. Nobody wants to see eight-12th men doing the dunk contest.

White vs black team 

Dunk contest been bad ever since Aaron Gordon got snubbed by Dwayne Wade

Dunk contest could consider having scripted dunks. Like the first round is a windmill, and whoever pulls off the flashiest and most powerful or complex windmill moves on. Als they only have one attempt. No time or extra attempts. One shot and show what you got. The final round can be freestyle and they can do what they want.

After Gordon got robbed by Wade, the dunk contest lost all credibility and all the Stars that were interested said nope fuck that.

I doubt it happens. Players are essentially brands because of social media and I don’t see why they would want to “hurt” their brand by getting crossed, dunked on or even unable to contain their opponent. 

I’m by no means good at basketball, I barely came off the bench during my school years. But I have had the opportunity to play with and watch semi-pros play. When they play one-on-one they would usually make a 3-5 dribble limit because of how hard it is to guard talented players. The NBA has waaaay better talent and it would essentially devolve to extreme rules like that because almost every offensive player in the league is extremely difficult to guard one-on-one, especially when they don’t have help behind them. 

The issue is starts won’t show up.

To me they need to scratch Skills Challenge and Dunk Contest and fully focus on the 3 point Contest and make it bigger. Have 20 participants. Hell have 30. Let legends play. Have fucking Larry Bird shooting while having two extra minutes and his shots count twice. Something crazy like that.

Invest in the 3 point contest.

Maybe I’m biased here but the dunk contest died in 2020 when D Wade handed it to a Heat player instead of AG.

Ngl, idk how they can rejuvenate the dunk contest

Its almost as if Adam Silver cares about basketball and he just needs his partners be it the players, the owners, the TV networks to care with him…….

When they care too, things seem to get better.

Before I get the swords, yes, I do have criticisms of Adam Silver.

If guys want all nba awards, credit and money, force those same guys to be in the dunk contest and other competitions too

Solves a lot of problems when the big names are obligated to participate

my pitch here is to do a 2v2 round robin relative tourney.

Bronny and LeBron v Giannis and Thanasis. Currys. Ausur and Amen. Champagnies. Cam and Pat Spencer. I’m sure there are more. Winner get the championship belt named their family until they are knocked off.

5 years late in team usa - world and this individual tournaments. too much hate and then after all the claiming they do that

Just add a WWE crossover at this point.

Wanna fix the dunk contest? Add some trampolines and padding and let em go crazy

i think the idea of a one-on-one knockout tournament featuring all the allstars with a MASSIVE cash prize is a fabulous way to re-invent allstar weekend. Players do NOT want to be embarrassed. Egos would be threatened. The only question is whether players would then politely decline their all-star selection but you could make it a condition of being “named” to the all-star team. Cruel, but effective for a crowd that very much cares about legacy and stacking accomplishments.

I think 3v3 would be fun with one guard one forward and one center

The upside for a all star caliber player to enter such a tourney is really low compared to the risk

Vince in the lab, with a pen and a pad, trying to get this damn label off.

Calling it now, if Embiid participates, no one is beating him 1v1

1 v 1 should replace the dunk contest.

Can’t wait to see Bronny vs Landry Shamet

Only way to fix the Slam Dunk Contest is get the stars to participate. Full stop.

They were listening to 520 

I’ve only been saying this for years they need to allow ANYBODY in the league to sign up and then let the fans vote out in the guys they most want to see.

You do that to give players who aren’t allstars but are generally regarded as a hoopers hooper a chance to showcase their skill against all stars and at the same time those type of players will actually compete.

Nobody is going to want to lose first round to a role player.

Imagine pat bev 1v1 an all star. Must see TV.

2 v 2 all star gets to pick any other player in league to be their teammate. create that vibe of seeing all stars play w guys not on their team. make for some fun random duos. winning team gets a million bucks

Need to get the Dillion Brooks, Pat Bev’s, etc out there going head to head in 1 v 1 style matches, go back to East v West, and drop a bag for the winner of the dunk contest

There’s no real benefit for a high profile player to get in it. The chance for embarrassment is way higher than the chance of yall being impressed

Somewhere Adam Silver is trying to ban all dunking content on YouTube.

Get professional dunkers on the dunk contest instead of NBA players. Get college guys too idk

2v2 would be awesome. 1v1 might be too competative

Silvers solution to every thing is a tournament. There’s also just 0 consistency to the weekend he changes it every year. It’s gimmicky as shit

There’s definitely going to be a collab with The Next Chapter for this imo.

They’re blowing up and already have the formula down. NBA guys are already attending the events and allegedly have been wanting to play but their teams are saying no.

You mean a tv partner can work to improve their allstar show instead of just using Allstar weekend to show Shaq, Kenny, and Charles riding go karts before Kenny gets drunk and says crazy stuff during Allstar Saturday night?

A 2-on-2 tournament would be awesome but I wonder about players declining so as not to risk injury.

If anybody is a tennis fan, before the Australian open this year they had a massive 1 point tournament exhibition at the start with all the top pros and some armatures/college players, with a million dollar grand prize, and it was a huge success. I’d love for an NBA single night 1v1 tournament to have a similar vibe. A large field with super fast matchups to add some randomness and drama, with a big prize to draw interest.

They need to retire the dunk contest. It’s at the point where even die hards haven’t heard of these players. It’s simple: guys don’t want to embarrass themselves and there just aren’t many new dunks left to do. It’s over.

1 on 1 or 2 on 2 would be cool, but again who are you getting to agree to do it? It’d have to be name players and obviously all stars preferred.

what’s Vince Carter going to do, quit on the dunk contest until he gets traded?

I would love to watch a game of NBA TIPS, or HORSE

It could be pretty dope. Drop the lights and put a spot light on em.

NBC is honestly doing a great job

Why not put a focus on 3v3? It’s an actual Olympic sport now that the US struggles with at that level. Cultivating some NBA all star or borderline all star talent that can actually get some reps in with Olympic rules would be a fun watch and hopefully grow the sport.

Adam “Mr. Big Tournament” Silver

NBC has just been great for the league

I think the 2v2 tournament should be one all star and a teammate of their choice. 

Rising Stars 1v1 tournament, winner calls out Current All star to play 1v1.

Bring back H-O-R-S-E.

2 v 2 would be dope. Have the 4 top vote getters draft an all star teammate. Could maybe also be the top 4 finishers in the prior year mvp race.

I can the 1-on-1 competition being full of guys trying to get a reputation. You get a big time shit talker or a guy trying to position himself in a contract year, that could be fun to see. I mean you know there are some cocky dudes going “Ant ain’t got shit on me 1-on-1”

What the fuck can Vince Carter do? All the dunks he did back then we got high schoolers doing it daily. Dunks have all been done so you have to do insane shit to wow people, and professional dunkers going viral have upped the standard. Star players aren’t taking time out their schedule to practice crazy ass dunks with gimmicks and props all day. Mfs like McClung can do it because respectfully he’s nothing without the dunk contest. He got all day to sit with Kilganon, not working on his game, dunking for hours

What guidance can Vince Carter give to the dunk contest? lol just jump higher guys!

Didn’t they try to do something like HORSE before? It was boring AF

My point is, players not giving a fuck will suck no matter how you dress it up.

Jason Concepcion had an idea that the dunk contest needs to emulate gymnastics scoring/judgement at the Olympics, where technicality, difficulty, originality etc. are all scored separately, rather than just going vibes based. I really dig that.

Unless Vince Carter created a time machine to bring back his old self wtf is he studying. The Dunk Contest is shit. There’s no resuscitating a corpse

Strange bedfellows(names drawn out of a bowl basically) draw for 2 on 2 would be amusing

Here’s how you change the dunk contest, make it an open tournament.

At the begining of the NBA season, regional (aligned with NBA cities) open dunk contest tournaments are held. Treat it like a reality show, open call. Anyone off the street has a shot. you reinforce the NBA dream to kid’s everywhere that they have a chance to compete with the pros. You’ll get a ton of grass roots following secondary to the actually NBA season culminating in a finale at All-Star weekend.

They can rejuvenate the dunk contest by giving $1m to the winner.

a game of HORSE between an assistant coach and hot dog vendor would be kind of incredible

I’m actually thinking it’s the opposite. A LOT of Marquee players will do it.

JB would, ant would, Kyrie might, a ton honestly.

The NBA is drowning in money. Find out what it takes to get guys interested and make that the prize. Per Yahoo, the dunk contest winner gets \(105K, which is absurd. Make it \)1M. Is that not enough? Then $2M. Or fuck it, let non-NBA dudes do it. Whatever it takes. The current product is abysmal.

There’s a couple of problems with dunk contests in general. First, dunking used to be rare in the NBA. Nowadays, I’d assume over 90% of NBA players have the ability to dunk the basketball. It’s no longer a novelty. Second, as dunkers have improved, dunking has reached close to an upper limit of what is possible. So, what was creative 10 years ago is no longer viewed as such.

In this case, dunking should take a page from figure skating and start codifying what makes a good dunk. But then, this leads to a bigger issue, other than all star Saturday night, no one really cares about creativity while dunking. So how do we make the dunk more important? Because, in game, a dunk is a dunk is a dunk. They’re all worth 2 points unless you get fouled.

With tracking technology nowadays, I wonder how feasible it would be to award scoring multipliers to in-game dunks based on quantifiable criteria?

1v1, 2v2, 3v3 even with bench players would be a lot of fun, I’ve been saying this for years. Hope they can make this happen asap and introduce some actually valuable prize incentives for whoever participates

How are the 1v1 and 2v2 tourneys not already a thing. Its an instant watch for any fan.

Take it back to the old formula. East vs west. Each team gets 12 members. Every member of the team has to compete in either the 3 point, skills, or dunk contest. If you’re not on the actual all star team you dont get to randomly appear out of nowhere like McClung. Winner of the actual game has their conference get home court during the Finals

They should allow challenges to occur, Ant calls out Wendy and Wendy can’t decline or he will lose his all-star spot. Any all star can be challenged once and can’t refuse a challenge. 

make the 3pt contest the main event

Fuck it, ill add my 2 cents: take away the dunk contest and make in-game dunks worth more if a panel of judges score them high enough.

This makes the stars participate and adds another layer of competition to the games. Pretty sure Ant will be hunting Wemby if he know a dunk on him is worth 4 points.

I’d want to see a 3v3 style tournament single elimination. Pick 8 team captains and let them pick 2 players for their team.

Randomized draft and reverse order (whoever picks first in round 1 picks last in round 2). 10 minute games with 15 second shot clock. The draft can be from any of the pool of players participating in all star weekend.

The team captains could be sga (if he played), wemby, jokic, Lebron, Durant, Edwards, kawhi, and jaylen brown.

Matchups would be randomized as well. Could be a fun chance to see stars face off since I doubt they’ll ever try 1v1.