Stephen A. Smith recently appeared on ESPN’s First Take and blamed LeBron James for beginning the domino effect that has caused the downfall of the NBA’s Slam Dunk contest conducted during the All-Star weekend.
According to Stephen A. Smith, when James was at the prime of his career, he refused to participate in the Slam Dunk contest, which gave off the impression to other star players that it wasn’t really that important to take part in the event.
“We all know it was terrible because there was no star power. And the reality is that we’re gonna bring it home where the GOATs can get it. I’m gonna blame LeBron James. Now, I’ve sat here for months, and I’ve applauded his greatness and all the things that he has done, and he has meant to the NBA.”
“But I have said it, and I’m going to be very, very consistent. The person who really is the provocateur to ruin the slam-dunk contest was him because he was a superstar who put on a dunk contest every night at the layup line, particularly when he knew that there was momentum swelling for him to participate, and he never did.”
“He even teased that he was going to participate one year, you know, when the great Cheryl Miller was on TV with TNT talking about it, and he told her that he was going to participate and never did.”
After the end of the NBA’s highly anticipated All-Star weekend, a common theme across basketball fans’ minds was how bad the dunk contest ended up being. Not just due to the lack of preparation from the players who ended up participating, but also due to the lack of big names.
Kendrick Perkins, the former NBA player, was also a part of First Take’s panel and further added to what Stephen A. Smith said about James. He agreed that James should be blamed, but asserted that James did not have that influence on people to make them want to idolize him.
“Now is the time because a lot of these guys, these young stars and rising superstars, they don’t look up to LeBron anyway, right? So, they’re not following his footsteps.”
“A lot of these guys looked up to Kobe. A lot of these guys come on record and talk about how they look up to Kevin Durant more than they look up to LeBron James. They don’t idolize him,” said Perkins.
According to Perkins, the solution here is to add prize money into the picture to incentivize the players’ participation in the Slam Dunk contest. But Stephen A. Smith was not convinced.
“No, I ain’t got no problems with that. Damn right. Find a way to get more money involved to get more money in the players’ pockets. I’m all for that. No doubt about it.”
“But we also need to pay attention to the fact that you do have cats making nine figures. And those people who came before them weren’t making that kind of money. And what they did was, they did it to uplift the game. And so I’m not sitting up here trying to throw shade on the brother. I’m just speaking facts,” Smith added.
“The reality of the situation is that if we’re going to talk about the problem, you have to talk about where it originated from, and then you move forward from there. There’s nothing that LeBron James could do now. I respect that.”
“But the fact of the matter is that it originated from him. When he didn’t participate, other people were like, ah, in the years to follow, that is a fact. Now, they’re their own men. And we get that part. But you know what? Those cats felt compelled when Dominique and Jordan went up against one another,” Smith continued.
“A lot of people were looking forward to it. They couldn’t slip out. They couldn’t pass up on going up against one another. They actually looked forward to it because they knew everybody looked forward to it. But then we metriculated to a different time, and you had cats that were like they weren’t overly concerned about that.”
“And the reason why I can, with a straight face, any of us can bring up LeBron James when it comes to the slam dunk contest and the problems that it had is because he teased that he was going to participate when he knew for years people were clamoring for his involvement when he went on a court on a night-in-night basis in pregame warm-ups and put down his own slam dunk performance.”
“Am I lying?… I dare you. Tell me that before the games and that layup line, he wasn’t teasing folks for seasons at a time about how he might participate and never did it. And then, ultimately, other cats followed.”
“So when we think about the demise of the slam dunk contest with a host of other things, he’s up here, and he deserves to be not just celebrated, but revered when it comes to the slam dunk contest and its diminished value. His fingerprints are written all over it. That is a fact. Period,” concluded Smith.
While James cannot reverse the damage he seems to have done, he can encourage other young stars to participate in the dunk contest. While Smith acknowledged that James deserves the platform that he has, he seems to be unhappy with what he did with the platform.
In my opinion, just as the younger generation of players like Anthony Edwards and Victor Wembanyama revived the main event of the weekend, they can help bring more energy and life back into the NBA’s Slam Dunk contest.
