Aaron Gordon was robbed of a perfect score on a perfect dunk in his 2016 battle with Zach LaVine in the dunk contest at NBA All-Star Weekend in Toronto. He was not robbed of the dunk contest trophy, and that’s an important distinction.

If we want to say he was robbed of a chance to win it, then I agree. If we want to say we were robbed of a continuation of the greatest Saturday night show in NBA history, that’s accurate, too. But to say Gordon was robbed of the contest crown itself is to ignore what happened on the other side of that battle throughout the entire night.

Claims of Gordon being “robbed” have happened for 10 years, but I’ve been steady in my stance since then. LaVine deserved the win just as much as Gordon did. Maybe we’re getting into a semantics dunk-off, or maybe it’s just something people like to say to fight the injustice of the score on the one dunk. Or maybe it’s because Gordon did have the best dunk of the contest.

However, LaVine put on an epic performance that was less reliant on props and just as incendiary. It’s why that dunk contest was so legendary, and it’s possible that it peaked in a way that its glory will never be revisited again.

After the team-based disaster of 2014, where John Wall was the “Dunker of the Night,” LaVine reminded everybody of what elite dunking was all about when he won the 2015 contest. He showed us that maybe all of the dunks hadn’t been done before, as so many assumed.

In 2016, both he and Gordon were up for the task, coming out with flair and swagger. They knew what it took to grab the crowd, and they knew they couldn’t act nonchalantly as so many dunkers end up doing. (Do you even remember the other two people in that contest? It was Andre Drummond and Will Barton. Don’t worry; I had to look it up to make sure, too.)

LaVine and Gordon had a plan of attack and were ready for fireworks. And we’re still ready to relive them 10 years later.

Their first dunks were feelers to get things flowing:



Coming in from the right wing, Gordon went between the legs with about a 180 twist of the body to get a 45 on his first dunk. It should have been a 50.
LaVine came from the 3-point line break on the right side and tossed the ball in the air. He caught it off the bounce, put it around his back and had a one-handed reverse dunk on the other side. That was a 50.

The second round is where I feel like opinions start to part ways, like a coach who doesn’t want to be fired and a team that is OK being kinder in firing said coach.

Dunks that involve jumping over someone holding the ball over their head leave me conflicted. Yes, you’re adding a ridiculous athletic element to the dunk, but so often we’ve seen the player dunking use that living prop as a steadying presence to gather for the dunk itself. That’s precisely what Gordon does in his first dunk involving the Orlando mascot.

Here are the second-round dunks:



Stuff the Magic Dragon is balancing on a hoverboard, something far more difficult for the mascot than Gordon. To be fair, it adds a little height to the object he’s jumping over. Stuff holds the ball over his head, and once Gordon clears it, he then pushes down on the ball as he’s gathering it to give himself some balance and structure in the air. Gordon takes it a step further by not just grabbing the ball and dunking it, but he puts it between his legs. It’s a ridiculous dunk, but it’s one he pushes off (or down on) the mascot for balance in the air. It should have been a 50, but he got a 49 to advance.
LaVine follows up his first dunk by catching an alley-oop from the free-throw line. I didn’t know that was allowed or legal. The creativity in its simplicity is the driving force for me. We’ve seen plenty of players take off from the free-throw line. We’d never seen someone catch an alley-oop and complete the dunk after take-off. It’s far more creative and impressive than given credit for on the broadcast. He got a 49, but it’s a 50.

The sheer display of athleticism and creativity of a dunk with zero props or especially push-offs will always impress me more than someone who pushes off, even seeing just how ridiculous and difficult that dunk is. Call it the Mac McClung effect. It’s helped by the mascot at a certain point, rather than impeded.

The championship round, however, is when things get really controversial. The first controversy is “the same dunk.”

Here are the first dunks of the championship round:



Gordon has Stuff out there again. He has Stuff hold the ball out to the side and spin slowly on the hoverboard. The hoverboard was hypnotizing to folks back then. Now it’s just a nuisance in society. Gordon runs up, cups the ball out of Stuff’s paw(?) and does that weird Karl Malone hand behind-the-head-as-he-spins-counter-clockwise-for-the-windmill-type dunk. The timing is very impressive, and he dunks it hard. It’s a 50, easily.
LaVine does essentially the same dunk but in a more difficult manner. He doesn’t have a mascot or teammate handing him the ball cleanly. He does it off the toss and bounce, catches it down behind his hip, cups the ball and then does a bigger counter-clockwise spin while dunking it harder and with more height. The broadcast truly did this dunk a disservice by just thinking it was the same thing. It’s actually a better variation and, once again, without props.

I will say that Gordon instructing Stuff to rotate is very funny, so maybe he deserves a little extra for showmanship there.

The next dunk is where people really decide to cape for Gordon, and it’s with good reason. His fourth dunk of the night is the dunk of the contest, and for plenty of people, that was the deciding factor in such a close race. This is another mascot dunk, but it is the ultimate prop dunk. And none of that is a knock on him. I still very much believe in everything I’ve said about pushing off or steadying yourself with these dunks where you’re clearing people or a mascot. At the same time, that all goes out the window with this next Gordon dunk.

Check out this round in all its glory:



Gordon clears the mascot, doesn’t seem to push off nearly as much as the first mascot dunk and he sits down in a lounge-style with both legs going to a 90-degree angle from his body as he brings the ball under his hamstrings before dunking it with the other hand! This is maybe the most unreal dunk we’ve ever seen in a contest. It may sound hypocritical to praise this dunk and discount the other dunks with clearing the mascot. I don’t care.
LaVine follows it up with an all-time dunk as well. A full windmill from the free throw line is outrageous. And it’s a 50 without a doubt. However, we just saw that Gordon dunk, and it’s hard to compare much else.

At this point, they’ve done nothing but 50s throughout the championship round. We’re headed to a dunk-off. What I appreciate about the next round is that, as impressive as the mascot dunks were for Gordon, he ditched them to show off his unreal athleticism and creativity without the props.

Here’s the first round of tiebreaker dunks:



Magic teammate Elfrid Payton puts the ball off the side of the backboard, Gordon comes flying in along the baseline, grabs it with both hands, basically jackknifes his body as he scissor-kicks his legs out and does a windmill reverse dunk with both hands. And his head was at the rim! There is so much power and torque in this dunk, as Kenny Smith claims he didn’t know Gordon could jump like this. He gets a 50, rightfully so.
LaVine follows it up with going from behind the baseline, off the toss and bounce, gathers it behind the backboard, goes between his legs and does a two-handed reverse dunk at the front of the rim. It looked like this was the type of motion and jarring motion/landing that should have sent him to a back specialist. This is an underrated dunk, even though he got a 50.

Maybe my favorite part of that whole sequence from LaVine was Kevin Harlan declaring, “That was terrific,” as if he were judging a seven-course meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

This is where we get to the actual theft for Gordon on a much smaller scale than saying this contest was robbed from him. His final dunk was far better than the score he was given:



This two-handed, double-pump, reverse dunk by Gordon is something we’ve seen before, with Harold Miner probably popularizing it the most back in the 1990s. But not to this extreme. Gordon brings the ball to his actual back, not just behind his head. Then he brings the ball below his knees on the second pump. And he dunks it so cleanly. He got a 47 for this. This is a 50! This would be a 50 if it took him two or three tries to complete it. It’s everything the dunk contest should be celebrated for. The athleticism, the creativity, the power. It’s all there. He got robbed of a 50.
LaVine finishes the contest by dunking from a half step inside the free-throw line and going between his legs. And apparently, this is just regular to the people who want to claim Gordon was robbed of the championship. LaVine got a 50 for the dunk to take home the title.

In my opinion, every single dunk by both of these guys was a 50. But if you’re tied, one person hasn’t won or lost. That’s where we should have been.

Gordon was robbed of a proper score on his final dunk. He was robbed of a chance to keep competing. We were robbed of more dunks. But LaVine deserved to win that dunk contest just as much as Gordon did.

Let’s revisit in 2036 for the 20th anniversary, when we have to remind kids what the dunk contest was.

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