All-Star Weekend: The Dunks of Our Lives

The dunk contest holds a very special place in our hearts over here at No Regard, as it does in the hearts of most NBA fans. While the All-Star game itself is generally a fairly entertaining event, the weekend's pinnacle arguably comes at the end of Saturday night, when we get to watch four of the world's greatest jumpers face off in a battle of athleticism and creativity.

This year's competition seems poised to generate some memorable jams, but DeMar, Serge, Blake, and JaVale will have to step it up if they want to match these staff all-time favorites.


Adam Ain't: Dee Brown's No See Dee (1991)



If we're going to talk about Dunk Contests that stand out in our minds, I don't know how I can talk about anything but Dee Brown's 1991 performance. It was not only the first Dunk Contest I ever saw, but it was one that my brother, a Celtics fan, would talk about for months to come.

To put it simply, to my kiddie brain, what Dee Brown did that evening was pure magic. He did something that I was too young to understand the physics of. How, I thought, could one do something so skill-intensive while TAKING AWAY HIS OWN SENSE OF VISION??? I may or may not have thought about it in those terms. You be the judge!

But anyway, it straight up just didn't compute. And you know what? It still kind of doesn't. I often think about how dunking a basketball on a ten-foot hoop would be the one thing I would ask for if granted any wish in the world. The feeling of being that elevated while simultaneously completing a feat of raw human power. So graceful yet so intense. The whole thing amazes me, and my inability to feel its power firsthand is a serious Issue in my life.

Every time I watch this dunk, it is almost as though Dee Brown is rubbing the fact in my face, taunting me, saying "Dunking is so easy a blind man can do it!" And that should piss me off. But it doesn't. Partially because I know that this looked far more effortless than it actually was, but more because on that night in 1991, Dee Brown made me believe in a world full of human possibility, one in which limitations were moot and seeing someone not seeing was believing. In fewer words, it made possible what seemed impossible in my tiny brain. To a five-year-old, that's some powerful shit right there. To a 25-year-old, it still is.