The 2018 NBA dunk contest was one of the most memorable ones in the last decade. Mainly because Donovan Mitchell captivated the Los Angeles audience with highlight dunks, including a tribute to Vince Carter. The then Utah Jazz guard won the night. However, Larry Nance, the runner-up, still believes that the contest was rigged.
Advertisement
The All-Star weekend in 2018 made a lot of changes to its format. However, the dunk contest remained mostly the same. Four contestants competed with two dunks each in the first round. Then the best two would move on to the finals and get two dunks to win the entire thing.
That year, Mitchell, Nance, Dennis Smith Jr, and Victor Oladipo all competed in the dunk contest. But it was Nance and Mitchell who made it to the final round, where Nance alleged foul play from DJ Khaled.
“The dunk contest was special. Obviously, I would have loved to win it,” Nance shared on Ball in the Family. “But, you know… Donovan [Mitchell] cheated me. DJ Khaled cheated for Don, actually.”
The comment came off as tongue-in-cheek, as the forward was laughing as he said it. But he raised some interesting questions later on that were more than fair.
“What’s DJ Khaled doing repping the dunk contest?” Nance questioned. “They had DJ Khaled, Chris Rock, Mark Wahlberg. How are you going to tell me what I’m doing is wrong or right compared to him?”
It was the one season that the NBA decided to experiment with celebrities as dunk contest judges. To this day, Nance is “sick” over how it all went down. He thought the celebrities were a good idea in theory, but in reality, they didn’t know what they were talking about.
In the final round, Mitchell attempted to recreate the dunk that Vince Carter won the 2000 NBA contest with. The issue was that he messed up on his first attempt. He then nailed it on the second try, hitting a 360 windmill slam. But the judges still gave him a score of 48 despite needing two attempts.
This is probably what irks Nance to this day. He didn’t get into specifics over how Mitchell and Khaled cheated. Regardless, it’s more than likely he thought that Mitchell should’ve gotten a lower score in the finals.
At the end of the day, though, it’s just the dunk contest. Nobody really cares who wins. And most of the time, it’s the losers that audiences remember more than the winners. For example, many believe that Aaron Gordon put on the best contest show ever in 2016. But he ended up losing to Zach LaVine. So, as long as Nance put on a good, memorable show, that’s all that matters.
