LaVine dedicates dunk contest to Flip Saunders

LaVine, fresh from earning Most Valuable Player honors in Friday’s Rising Stars Challenge exhibition game, earned his fifth maximum score of 50 on the night with a through the legs dunk from just within the free-throw line to seal the win.

The dunk contest was the highlight of the night with Gordon’s innovation and big air rivalling LaVine’s unbelievable athleticism. At first, having Stuff step off the hoverboard seems to be a dumb move – but then, something happens that can’t be explained. Trick dunks like Gerald Green (does) – I don’t know why he wasn’t in the dunk contest – he can do anything. Coming close are those of such notables as Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins, and, yes, Spud Webb. That dunk was enough to propel Gordon to the next round.

Fortunately, LaVine didn’t do just that, thanks to Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic. LaVine – a second year player with the Minnesota Timberwolves – went into this year’s contest as the hot favourite and didn’t disappoint.

Gordon got a 47 with a Harold Miner-style jackknife dunk on his fourth dunk, which opened the door for LaVine in one of the most memorbale competitions in years. Some day it will be the ultimate testament to the greatness of this contest. The creativity and amount of difficulty to pull off those dunks was unfathomable.

In the end, neither of these guys should have won or lost, something LaVine copped to as he accepted the trophy.

After the performance, he posted a picture of the trophy alongside a Minnesota jersey reading “Flip”.

The only area where Gordon failed was history. Leading up to All-Star Weekend, there was a lot of trash-talking back and forth between Hart and Dray but no one thought Kevin Hart could actually back up his talk. “There’s always some trade sh*t going [on]”, Melo said Saturday during an interview on Sirius XM NBA Radio. This time, Gordon started in the opposite corner with an incredible tomahawk-to-reverse dunk. I can’t do yesterday’s (dunk) under both legs.

The NBA’s biggest superstars will take center court Sunday night during the NBA All-Star weekend, but it was a pair of 20 year olds stole the show Saturday night.

“We haven’t quite figured out what we want to do with it yet”, Bryant said. That is insane. So off that dunk youve got to give it to him. And, from here on, LaVine’s and Gordon’s are the short list as well. There might be bigger names out there, but there can’t be better dunkers. Andre Drummond and Will Barton were understated and definitely didn’t bring their best dunks if they wanted to win the contest this year.