UPDATE: Check out the NEW Slam Dunk History Poster.
We broke down every NBA slam dunk contest (1984 to 2011) by dunk, year, and score. You can see video footage of the actual dunk by clicking on the circles in the graph.
How to Read the Graph:
We tried to keeps things standard by displaying 3 rounds per year and up to 3 dunks per round. Some years there were two rounds and some rounds anywhere from 1 to 3 dunks. Placing the mouse over the circle will reveal the player, year, round, dunk and score. Gray circles mean we are lacking video for that dunk (see below for why some years were more difficult than others).
Our Notes:
The coolest part of the interface is being able to quickly get to any dunk with out having to search through hours of video. Admittedly, the data itself does not change too dramatically year to year, but the dunk contest sure has. In the early years, the dunk contest was less polished. Highlights include candid footage of Dr. J’s kids coaching him on his next dunk and a young, un-coached, Michael Jordan with gold chain and warm-ups casually strutting into his first dunk competition.
Nothing has been sacred in the dunk contest. The format has changed dramatically over the years in terms of number of participants, dunks, and requirements. High points include Vinsanity’s resurrection of the contest after two years of no dunk contest at all (1998/99), with a flurry of never before seen dunks, as well as improved coverage – stop motion photography, improved commentary (Rick Barry read the same script every year). Low points include “The dunk wheel”, Chris Anderson’ s nine attempts at the same dunk and prop dunks run-a-muck
After spending hours of watching every dunk, we tried to think of what could possibly be done that would be entirely new. Best idea so far: Dwight Howard doing a “piggy back dunk” with Nate Robinson deploying like a satellite to dunk a second ball mid flight. You have a better idea? Let us know.
Additional Notes
Once again, the Gordon Brothers (Matt and Jon) were a huge help in gathering the data. Follow both on Twitter @Matogo18 and @JGordo92. They cataloged the footage from the 90′s (arguably the the most painful portion). We also had some technical difficulties with a few of the more recent years. We’re actively working to fix that. In building this we had several conversations about how bummed we would be if the source videos get yanked. It is strange to us that fans sharing something as cool as footage of the dunk contest would be frowned upon by the NBA. Many large corporations spend big money to encourage this level of engagement, why not run with it? Check out the format changes over the years here.
Oh man, love the piggy back dunk idea. Though it’s also kind if gross and reminds me of Quato from total recall.
http://collider.com/wp-content/image-base/Movies/T/Total_Recall/quato_total_recall_movie_image.jpg
great work as usual guys
What a great idea. I love it
It’s perfect.
What a pleasure to jump from 1989 to 2006 and come back in 1992 in two seconds ..
BRAVO
Vraiment très bien , in french
Awesome… any way you can make it where you could swap axes?
It wont let me scroll past 1987. I want to see ALL the dunk and im not getting them. Somebody Help!!!!
This was a great idea!
Amazing. Great idea and great execution!
Second person to report that. Use this link till we can figure it out. http://hoopism.com/youtube/DunkContestViz.html
Amazing idea & collaboration getting it altogether… wish I knew how to do something like that.
Btw… I went back & looked at the 2000 contest to see the Vinsanity in action. I gotta say I think the judges sucked because there were way too many 50′s for what they actually did.
How come there is no ability to pause/adjust volume/etc?
Otherwise, god bless for making this.
awesome post. huge respect for the dedication
kenny smith gets excited way too easily, needs to put away those 50′s!
Wow… tremendous. Great point about the NBA & dunk contest footage. So glad I recorded the dunk contests I wanted to keep when they ran them on NBATV awhile ago.
Lastly… People complain about Bennett Salvatore in the ’06 Finals, but the biggest crime in NBA history was the judges robbing ‘Nique in the ’88 Dunk Contest. Unconscionable.
Thanks for the videos!
Now here is one I am digging lately…
While searching for music I found this video, its pretty funny and the song gets me moving. Wait until the end for a url to get the song for free:
http://www.youtube.com/user/endthebonk?feature=mhum#p/a/u/1/cW8rnMmYID8
Music suggestions welcome. Any songs you can’t go to the gym without?
just as well there are no vids of 2010…lol.
This is definitely cool.
My favourite is looking at all the bad scores to find out what happened.
By the way, anyone notice the grade inflation that has creeped up ever since Vince Carter revived the thing? Only one dunk in the last 11 years has scored under 30 points. Turns out that teachers aren’t the only ones who don’t know how to make complete use of the grading range.
Nice idea guys. It’s a lot easier than sifting through youtube.com
Now I can watch the cartwheel dunk over and over.
Here are some dunks that haven’t been done yet and should be all have to do with the final frontier in trick dunking: the backboard. In the NBA over the last 30 years, players have improved in size and vertical leaping ability to the point that dunks considered impossible before i.e. between the legs, 720′s, and over unders are now done even at a college or streetball level. I’ve been analyzing dunks for years and the two things that no has done thus far are upping the height they are dunking on or dunking from further out. The latter is pretty much impossible in that range of dunking has scarcely improved since Dr. J. Its been the foul line since the 70′s and I don’t expect anyone to go from three territory anytime soon.
But, many players can go higher, way higher than the rim and when this happens the crowd almost always responds favorably. Remember Vince putting his whole elbow in the hoop as a demonstration that ten feet was a bunny hop to him. Or Dwight Howard smacking stickers on the goal to show how high he reached. To this day I hear fables from my dad about Earl Manigault who could snatch a quarter off the backboard. So heres what I propose:
1. Dwight Howard dunks a ball over the backboard, not even in the hoop. He just runs up from the hashmark goes up and does a basic dunk but in doing so he completely bypasses the hoop and just dunks the ball over the backboard itself. This will stun the crowd and the judges who will argue about what just happened and moreover it will give some context to his athleticism and the other players. Most of these dudes have phenomenal vertical leaps but are underutilized in the sense that it only takes most of them 20 inches to reach a ten foot goal. I’m pretty sure Howard could get a ball over the backboard. He’s seven feet tall and can jump 50 inches straight up give or take. But in doing this dunk he would struggle and look just as compelling as Spudd Webb and Dee Brown did in their wins.
2. Evoke the Goat and rig a ball up at the top of the backboard. Run and jump up to get it and fall with it to the hoop where it is dunked almost as a fall breaking afterthought before landing. This could be done with an Earl Manigualt memorial t shirt or some such on and would also get the crowd dumb hype.
May i ask, how did you make that graph? does youtube offer such functionality?
Danny spent over an hour checking out the best dunks. He says your post is “Totally Beast” and that is the highest compliment from a 6th grader!
this is the best single web page i have ever visited
where is t-mac to vinsanity for between the legs in 2000??
UAU!
Wow, this is great! You can’t love basketball and not love THIS!!
Thanks for the hard work and putting in the time needed to put this together. Basketball fans everywhere thank you!
Whoever created this is a GOD!
awesome
This is amazing! I don’t how or why you thought or creating this, but I’m sure glad you did! Slam dunk!!!
Love this thing. However, why are the YT controls missing for each video?
Awesome.
Wow, thanks. I forgot what a monster Kenny Walker was in 1989. I rank his dunks better than anything I ever saw from the mid-90s onward. By far.
Wish you could sort by players. a search function would be nice.
Awesome, awesome site. Just wanted to ask, Are yous still having tech difficulties with the recent years? Or is it my computer? I can get almost everything to work, but there’s still random ones that won’t. For instance 2011, the final 4 work for me and the first round 8 dunks don’t. FIgured I’d ask in case others are having that problem.
Thanks Matthew. They worked when I put them up, I’ll have to check. Maybe the user removed the videos.
Thanks for the mention.
Brilliant!
on blake griffin’s arm in the rim the announcer goes “Blake Griffin, going Wince Carter style.” made me laugh
@Hoopism thanks for the reply, and thanks for fixing some of those! awesome!
Now you have me stuck on this page. This is basketball dunk heaven!
This is seriously amazing work! I forgot about so many of these great players being apart of the dunk competitions over the years
“This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement from claimants including:
National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association
National Basketball Association”
To all videos =/