The Dunk of the Year contest is over. Shut it down, kill the lights, everyone go home. Gerald Green is the winner.

Green, the former first-round draft pick and 2007 Slam Dunk Contest champion, had been out of the league since 2010 before signing a 10-day contract with the New Jersey Nets at the end of February. Since joining the team, he’s averaged about nine points and three rebounds a game, but none of that is important because on Saturday night Gerald Green caught an alley-oop and HOLY SH-T LOOK AT THAT PICTURE. His entire face is above the rim. Mother of God.

I’d like to conclude this post with a brief editorial note about dunking. Dunking is the best. If I were able to dunk like Gerald Green, I would never stop. Every time I touched a basketball, I would just put my head down and tear towards the basket with the misguided recklessness of a bird flying into a window. When I didn’t have the ball, I would constantly be doing that thing where I try to make eye contact with whoever has it and nod my head towards to the rim to indicate I want them to throw me an alley-oop. I wouldn’t develop any sort of fundamental skills like ball-handling or defense or a mid-range jump shot. Nope. All dunks. I would be a mostly useless player who brought nothing to the table except one ridiculous highlight every now and then surrounded on all sides by mediocre play and an inflated sense of self-importance.

Basically, I would be Gerald Green.

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The Orlando Magic's Dwight Howard and the Minnesota Timberwolves' Gerald Green put on quite a show in the slam-dunk contest for the NBA fans gathered in New Orleans for the All-Star Game:

“I think the dunk contest is back,” said Howard, who was disappointed when he failed to make it out of the first round last year. “I don’t think people want to see the same old dunks. They want to see something else, see some spice.” 

Spice, but not Old Spice. Got it. Howard got things started by tossing the ball off the backside of the glass, ducking under the glass and dunking it. Green answered thusly:

After Timberwolves teammate Rashad McCants climbed up and placed a cupcake with a single candle in it on the back of the rim, Green soared in and puffed out the flame before throwing down a nasty left-hander. “At first I thought he was going to take the cupcake, eat it and then dunk it,” Howard said. “I thought he would have won with that.”

I thought this was the best dunk because I like cupcakes, but mostly because Green's head was over the rim. However, Howard won the contest with, well let's look at the slightly gay-journo porn description:

That’s when Howard stripped off his blue Magic jersey to reveal an “S” on his chest. As the crowd stood, he tied the cape around his massive shoulders. “I didn’t have time to get the telephone booth,” he quipped. Nelson placed a piece of tape to mark Howard’s take-off spot, and after a running start from near mid-court, the Magic’s main man took off just inside the free-throw line and fired down the ball with authority.

Howard kinda just guided the ball in rather than truly dunking it, but not even Lex Luthor is going to argue with a 7' Superman. Yes, these dunks were fun to watch, but Howard and Green stole these themes directly from my 6th birthday party. If they would use the theme of my 21st birthday party next year, that would be a spicy dunk contest. Of course, it may be time-consuming and expensive to bail out the contestants after every dunk. -KD