 This is something that I think needs to change about the NBA. NBA All-Star weekend. Probably the most, other than the NBA finals, the most exciting time of the NBA season. Obviously the playoffs and the finals, yeah, that's all cool. It's exciting. But this year we sort of know who's making the NBA finals. We've known for the last couple of years and I think we know who's going to make it again. So this year's NBA All-Star game and weekend should be exciting. The only problem is, I'm not that excited as I should be. Because the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, we used to have really good players in the Dunk Contest. Remember when it was, well, I wasn't alive and I'm sure most of you guys weren't alive, but we know about Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins in the Dunk Contest. We know about Vince Carter, Tracey McGrady and Steve Francis in the Dunk Contest. We know about Kobe Bryant when he was younger in the Dunk Contest. We've never seen LeBron James in the Dunk Contest and this year we've got Glenn Robinson, Aaron Gordon, Derek Jones Jr. and DeAndre Jordan. I don't know about you, but I'm excited to see Aaron Gordon. I'm excited to see what DeAndre Jordan can do. Derek Jones Jr., I've seen some highlights of him. He looks pretty dope. Glenn Robinson, I don't really know what he's going to do to be honest. He'll be like the, he'll come last. Maybe he'll surprise somebody, I don't know. But all I'm saying is, the NBA Slam Dunk Contest needs to change and I have a solution and I think you guys, I want to see what you guys have to say about this, but I also want to hear what you guys have to say about the whole Slam Dunk Contest as a whole. Do you enjoy it? Do you enjoy four contestants? That's all we have, just the four contestants. And do you wish that there was more players that were actually good? I mean good players. I mean superstar players. Where's John Wall? Where's Russell Westbrook? Where is Paul George? Where are these players now? Why do we have Glenn Robinson and Derek Jones? Why not have more than the four players? So here are my solutions. Number one, to get players like Russell Westbrook, who is arguably the most athletic player that we've ever seen, to get him to want to join an NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest, we need to give players like him an incentive. Now, I don't mean money as in, because we know these players are multimillion-dollar players. Do they really care about, you know, an extra million dollars? To be honest, yeah, they probably do. I mean, who would it? But I'm just saying they are multimillion-dollar players. Although most of these players that are superstar players or All-Stars, they have their own charities, all right? They try and support either the local community or something that they feel that they need a help. So I know LeBron James has his charities. He helps a lot of, you know, underprivileged kids. He helps, you know, with school and things like that. Kobe, when he played, he had his charity. We know Carmelo's got his. Wade's got his. A whole bunch of good players have their charities, all right? We know that. But at this point, why not help them in their charities and as an incentive, get them to join the, get them to join a slam dunk contest. And if they win, or even if they just compete, the NBA puts in money towards their charities. Because at this point, why don't we have more than the four players in the dunk contest? Why do we have four? Four is not that fun. It's not as exciting as seeing a John Wall in there. Who wouldn't want to see Russell Westbrook in the slam dunk contest? The most athletic player I think we've ever seen. Obviously it's arguable, there's Jordan, there's Dominique, there's all these athletic players, Vince Carter. I'm just saying Russell Westbrook is an athletic beast. We know about that. But I feel like there's no way that a player just is going to join the dunk contest because either they're going to do what LeBron did and say, at this point you've never decided to deny the dunk contest. It's just never been something to my flavor, man. You know, I did it in high school a couple of times. I had some fun with it. So you're an in-game dunker. Yeah, I'm an in-game dunker. People don't want to hear that. I'm not really coming out of the booth or no stuff like that, man. I'm more of an in-game dunker, but it's been some years where I've said I was going to do it and didn't do it and then actually watching the dunk contest made me mad at myself because I believe it would have been great. But now at this point, I'm over the hill now, so he's not going to see me no time. But I talked about this the other day on a podcast. If you guys know B-Souls, I'm not sure if you know him. He's an NBA YouTuber, a great guy, a great YouTuber. I'll put his link in the description. I was on a podcast with him and a few other guys. Definitely check it out once again. The links in the description box down below. And I said, you know, I'll make a video on it, but I said that it's not what I thought it should be. When I think about the dunk contest, I want to see superstar players. And here's my second solution. We can have Deandre Jordan. We can have Glenn Robinson. We can have Aaron Gordon, who I'm super excited to watch. Aaron Gordon, after what he did last year, how can you not be excited to watch him? And Derek Jones Jr. If you haven't watched Highlights of Him, well, you're going to see them on the screen right now. Derek Jones Jr. He can throw it down. So yeah, I'm excited to watch him. But apart from these four guys, why not make it three superstars or all-star players like Russell Westbrook, John Wall and Paul George as examples? Why don't we get three either rookies or sophomore players like, or just younger players, you know, like Aaron Gordon and Andrew Wiggins and, I don't know, let's just say, who's athletic that's a rookie? Jalen Brown, all right? Why don't we get those three? As an example, by the way, as an example. And then you can have your Glenn Robinson's and Derek Jones's where nobody really thinks about them when you think about the dunk. Like, who really thinks, yeah, Glenn Robinson, let's get him in the dunk contest. Come on. Like, nobody really says that, all right? Although Glenn Robinson, he might surprise somebody. I don't know. I'm just saying. We need to make this more exciting for the fans. We need to make it more enticing for the players and we need to get some superstar players. Now, I know that when M.J. and Dominique battled it out, I know they were younger. We don't know what these players, because Aaron Gordon, he might turn into a superstar. Who knows? Jordan and Wilkins, they were young when they joined the dunk contest. Vince Carter, he wasn't young. He showed what he could do on the dunk contest and when you think about the Vince Carter 2000 dunk contest, who was in it? You had McGrady, you had Vince Carter, you had Steve Francis. Who do you have this year? Glenn Robinson and Derrick Jones? I mean, it's cool, but it's not the same, you know what I mean? A few years ago, it was dope. It was dope. We had Paul George, John Wall. How cool was that? Two guys that you knew that were going to become superstar players or at least all-star players. Stars of the NBA, you knew that were going to become them. But it was ruined because of the all-star, the way that they had it. If you guys remember the dunk contest, it was split up into teams. It just wasn't good. All the NBA needs to do is bring it back to the old days. Bring it back to at least eight players in the dunk contest with all of them battling it out. You've got five judges holding up a score of 50. That's all you need. Entice these all-star players into wanting to join the dunk contest. I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed, to be honest with you. I won't lie. Although, yeah, it's going to be cool watching Derrick Jones and Aaron Gordon and De'Andre Jordan. It's not the same. It's not the same as having a Russell Westbrook in there. I'm just saying that's what I think. I want to know what you guys think because, to be honest, it really is interesting. It really, really is. Why hasn't the NBA been able to get these superstar players in there? What do we need to do? I mean, do we need to ask them on social media? Do we need to... Because all players pretty much follow... You know NBA players look at their social media all the time, right? They go on Twitter all the time, just like everybody else. Maybe more so. I'm just saying, like, it just needs to change, man. I should be more excited than I am. I think we can all agree on that. I want to see a Michael Jordan, Dominique Wilkins showdown. Last year we had Levine and Aaron Gordon. It was cool. It was really cool. But we could have had Levine and Gordon featuring as well as John Wall. I don't know. Give me some names, man. Give me some names. Of course we did have Giannis in there a couple of years ago. He didn't really do that well. But why not bring him back? Or not even Giannis. I want a superstar in there, man. I want a superstar in there. I want Paul George. I want John Wall. I want Russell Westbrook. You know what I mean. I hope you guys know what I mean. It's just an interesting discussion. Let me know down below what you think. How dope would it be to see Russell Westbrook in there? Like, that's all I really want to see. The other thing I want to say is a few years ago the All Star Game was in Toronto. I would have loved to see Vince Carter just come back at the old age of 37 or whatever he was at that time. I don't even know how old he is now. I think he's 39 now. I don't know. But how cool would it be if he came to the dunk contest in Toronto and just threw down at least one dunk? He didn't even have to be in there, man. He didn't have to be in there. The NBA needs to hype up the dunk contest like it used to be because right now it is dead. It's cool seeing these players throw down crazy duns but it's not the same as seeing Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady and Steve Francis go at it. Is it? Kobe Bryant. He was in the dunk contest and I know all these guys were pretty much younger when they joined. Kobe Bryant was young. Dominique and MJ were quite young. I get that. But I still think the NBA needs to make this event more popular. We need to get it crazy. We need to just, I don't know, just get more energy into it. I don't know if you know what I feel, but that's what I'm feeling right now. I thought it deserved a video because the NBA dunk contest, in my opinion, needs to change. There's something about the NBA that needs to change. But I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Let's try and aim for 3,000 likes and if you're new and you enjoy listening and hearing about these NBA discussions, definitely hit that subscribe button. Comment down below though, what are your thoughts? Do you feel the same way that I do or are you happy about seeing Derek Jones, and Deandre Jordan, and Aaron Gordon in the dunk contest? I think we need to see all these players, but we also need to see some more superstar players as well. Anyway, it's been your morning, Smith. Subscribe if you're new. Also, I just wanted to say, if you haven't seen my World Chamberlain video about the 100 points, the link is in the description. It's on my channel. I don't know if you guys have seen it because it doesn't have that many views for the amount of views I normally get. So sub boxes may have been messing up once again, but if you guys haven't seen it and you want to go watch it, you can go on my channel and check it out. But yeah, I'm out. Peace.