2014 NBA All-Star Weekend Preview: Sports With Biers feature

Indiana Pacers’ Paul George will be in the Slam Dunk contest

Dunk Contest Winner

The Dunk Contest has some different rules this year. It is no longer an individual battle, but a battle between conferences. 3-vs-3 with a freestyle round and a battle round. The freestyle round is a 90 second free for all for each conference. The three participants from each conference will share a 90 second window to put up some monster dunks.

Then we move to the battle round where it gets interesting. The conference teams still apply but these are 1-on-1 match-ups. The judges will pick the winners from each battle (East dunker vs West dunker) and the first conference to reach three wins is named champ of the dunk contest. Then at the end the fans vote to pick the overall best dunker, but anytime the fans vote it normally becomes a popularity contest. We will pick which conference we think will win and the overall winner.

MT: Due to my West coast bias, I am going with Lillard, Barnes and McLemore. I think they are the perfect combination for a dunk contest. Lillard will provide creativity with his point guard background. McLemore has put down some of the best fast-break dunks this season and may be the best leaper in the contest. Finally, Barnes provides the power. Barnes has thrown down some of the hardest dunks I have ever seen. The three of them combined are a perfect combination of creativity, finesse and power. Even though I am going with the West group to win the battle, I am going with Paul George to win the fan vote. The man is too popular a player and too sick of a dunker to not win this easily.

JB: It seems quite obvious to me who will win the dunk contest. With a trio of Paul George, John Wall, and Terrence Ross, how can the East NOT win? The West only boast Harrison Barnes, Damian Lillard, and Ben McLemore, who are all ferocious in-game dunkers, but lack creativity, except perhaps McLemore. Paul George has already turned in the dunk of the year with his 360-windmill in-game dunk earlier in a match with the Los Angeles Clippers, and Ross showed the world what he could do last year. Top those two off with the artistic John Wall, and the you’ll realize that the dunk contest will in fact be no contest at all, just the East putting the West to shame.

PA: Someone must have hit Josh in the head, because he’s got a point. The East wins the conference head-to-head in my mind this year. I don’t see the creativity out of Barnes or McLemore, even though both are very impressive in-game dunkers. I mean, who could forget Barnes going up over Nikola Pekovic, early into his NBA campaign. But, how will that really translate to this? We’ve seen Terrence Ross before, and Paul George showed us a preview in the game earlier this year vs. Lob City. Can we debate the dunk contest we’d really rather see? LeBron vs Blake Griffin for some substantial prize. The King takes on The Blake Show. I know LeBron is beyond the age of a normal dunk contest participant, and I know we’ve seen Blake jump over a KIA, but I think that could be a bigger contest than this one would.

Terrence Ross is the defending dunk champion

RR: It’s just so easy to pick the East in this one, but I can’t go against logic. Harrison Barnes is just too boring to really have flair in a dunk contest. Damian Lillard really hasn’t shown anything besides your standard point guard dunk (nothing like a Westbrook or DRose). And Ben McLemore probably won’t make one since he misses three quarters of his shots on a nightly basis anyway. Basically it comes down to loving T Dot (Terrence Ross) and Paul George for me. I called T Dot’s win last year and I think he has some above average help from the rest of his teammates (John Wall has shown some actual tricks in games). I’m also calling Ross to win the head-to-head portion of the event, as repeat winners tend to have good showings in this event.