2 NBA Dunk Contest: Get back to dunks, you're celebbing too much

I'm getting tired of the NBA Dunk Contest. 

To me, it seems like every year it gets worse and worse. In fact, I'm having trouble remembering the last time I saw something at a dunk contest that made my jaw drop.

Don't me wrong, I'm not hating on the hard work of the young men of the NBA. I admire and respect their passion and what they do, but from a fan's perspective, from a entertainment perspective, I'm not impressed. I think I've seen more impressive stuff on YouTube.

But the dunk contest is failing miserably and I've come up with a few reasons why:

1) Too much focus on theatrics- A prime example: Last night, James "Flight" White brought out flight attendants and air traffic control personnel for his dunk. At first, it made people (including me) take notice and say "Oh, that's clever". But then, White missed the dunk like 5 times before landing it, which made the whole "flight" theatrics just seem goofy and unnecessary, which brings me to my next point....

2) Not enough focus on perfecting the dunk itself- I'm sick of getting my hopes up for a dunk just to see someone come out and choke. While watching instance like these, I think to myself, "How much did you practice your dunk?"

3) Too much focus on celebrities- I like to see celebs involved in all-star weekend activities, but it seems like when I watch dunk contests, the camera is always checking on what Spike Lee is up to, or what Big Sean seems to think, or what did JJ from Good Times think about the last dunk, or how Little Richard is doing (you never know, he might be there too).

You never know who will show up at the Dunk Contest.

The icing on the cake for me was when I saw the camera show Drake running around on the sidelines after someone's dunk looking as excited like a kid who just got a Charizard in his pack of Pokemon cards. 

I thought to myself, "What does Drake have to do with anything?"

I was just waiting for one of the NBA players on the sidelines to give him a "He doesn't even go here!" (word to the movie Mean Girls).


Basically, the Drake incident combined with other instances of celebrity focus (or celebrity attention-whoring) just caused me to react to many celebs like this guy, 15 secs into this clip from Martin:

But on a positive note, let's try to get back to what the dunk contest used to be, let's make it less about Drake, less about corny theatrics, less about Charles Barkley ripping on the NBA players' fashion choices (scratch that, keep Charles Barkley, he's hilarious, or as he'd say, "Hil-lurious")...

Turrible, just Turrible.

... and more about the point of the slam dunk contest, which is the art of the dunk. Simple and plain, no need for all the extra stuff.