* All titles reflect those that were held on Feb. 'If it's time to give it a rest,' NBA commissioner David Stern said then, 'let's give it a rest.' The NBA began to tire of it as the main attraction of All-Star Saturday night, and in 1998, for the first time in nearly 15 years, the league would go into its midseason break without a dunk contest. Throughout the 1990s, it failed to draw star participants, and those who did compete were often derided for the dunks they managed. Yet before Carter could become 'Vinsanity,' before he could deliver one of the most talked-about, most celebrated All-Star moments ever, there was no dunk contest at all.įollowing the scintillating showdown between Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins in the 1988 NBA Slam Dunk Contest, the league's ugly secret was that the event was hemorrhaging cachet. It would take a generational moment, his performance in Oakland, to reach his grandest level of fame. Later, he had become such a feared dunker that at one national high school competition, which featured other future NBA All-Stars, the field simply forfeited midcontest after one particularly explosive Carter slam.īy early 2000, Carter was a newly minted All-Star, a dynamic scorer and one of the NBA's rising names, but he was still a foreign entity playing in Canada for the Toronto Raptors. Just minutes before the contest begins the next night, he will scrap all but one dunk he had prepared, almost totally improvising one of the greatest athletic exhibitions the NBA will ever see.Ĭarter seemed destined for this stage, ever since his first slam dunk in the sixth grade, a desperate attempt on the outdoor hardtop at Ormond Beach Middle School in Florida. Not that Carter's planning will matter much. His thoughts turn to the half-dozen or so slams he has planned for the competition, a stacked affair that will feature four All-Stars, either present or future, including Carter's cousin and teammate. The next evening, in Oakland, he is to compete in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest at All-Star Weekend, an event both celebrated and reviled and one Carter does not yet know he has been tabbed by the league to save. He is restless because his mind won't stop. 11, 2000, Vince Carter lies awake in his Bay Area hotel. Editor's note: This story was originally published on Feb.

Tiny player dunk contest