And We ll Never Ride Dubs Again No We Won t Tryna Get Above the Rim a Little Too Short to Dunk

Vince Carter scrapped his entire plan when he showed up for the 2000 NBA Slam Dunk Contest. Then he improvised a masterpiece.

Equally told to Dave Zarum

The purest exhibition of sheer able-bodied talent that exists in sports, the NBA Slam Dunk Contest served as a launching pad to stardom for the likes of Julius Erving, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. But past the year 2000, following a string of unimaginative and unmemorable contests, the event had lost its lustre, then much and then that information technology wasn't fifty-fifty held in 1998 and '99. Enter Vince Carter, the Toronto Raptors' 23-year-old superstar-to-be. With an unrivalled alloy of grace, ability, creativity, hang-fourth dimension and showmanship, Carter, a first-time all-star, had been lifting fans out of their seats with his dunks since he debuted in the NBA the previous season. Fans and media alike chosen him the greatest in-game dunker since Jordan, bestowing upon him the heavy nicknames "Air Apparent" and "Air Canada" for his feats above the rim.

And so you tin imagine that expectations were high when Carter entered his name in the 2000 dunk contest. Though he was joined past his cousin and fellow Raptor, Tracy McGrady, as well as Steve Francis, Ricky Davis, Jerry Stackhouse and Larry Hughes, it was Carter's proper noun on the marquee. No contestant had more than to lose than Vince. If he didn't win confronting that field, he'd fail to live upward to the hype. And if he won, well, wasn't that the whole signal of this affair anyway?

What nobody could have known was that the three finalists would combine to put on arguably the greatest showing of all time, and that Carter's performance would go downwards as the gilt standard in contest dunking, but every bit jaw-dropping 20 years subsequently equally it was on that Saturday night in Oakland.

Vince Carter Getting the opportunity to participate in the dunk competition was a lifelong, childhood dream. Of course the game on Sunday is great and all, simply All-Star Sabbatum and the dunk contest was it for me.

Dee Brown 1991 douse-contest gnaw and Carter's teammate for the 1999–2000 season I had known Vince earlier we played together on the Raptors, existence a Florida boy, myself. I remember seeing the contest he won in high schoolhouse. When he was coming up as a child there were a lot of douse contests, and he won all of them.

Jerry Stackhouse 2000 douse-contest entrant, now an assistant coach with the Raptors I recall playing pickup games with him at Chapel Hill. Someone would make a shot and as the ball is falling through the rim Vince would catch it and windmill it in once again. So you knew he was special when it came to leaping ability and timing. But an unbelievable athlete.

Kenny Smith TNT sportscaster and iii-time dunk-contest entrant Most people knew about what Vince could practise every bit a dunker, but they had never seen him douse in a contest. They didn't know if he could have that creativity that, in a contest, is completely different than, say, when you're finishing off a fast break during a game.

Chocolate-brown The people were there for Vince, no question. You've got to recollect that the yr before, 1999, they didn't have a dunk contest, so this was going to be "the rejuvenation." It was a bigger deal than usual.

Smith I'd seen Vince. I knew he had the power to do things that we had legitimately never seen—but not to that level.

Carter Growing up, I used to tape the douse contests and study them. I was trying to figure out in my heed—it might exist a little different from the boilerplate guy and so this might audio weird—the dunks were absurd and all, but I wanted to know, Why is he doing this dunk? What is he trying to show? What's the expect he's going for? That was how I would break it downward. I was into it. Obsessed.

a flick is worth i,000 dunks For his tertiary dunk, Carter put the ball between his legs off a bounciness pass from McGrady, taking inspiration from a picture he'd seen in a magazine a calendar week earlier the contest—even though he'd never once tried it in exercise

With a calendar month or so to ready, Carter and McGrady took some fourth dimension after each practise to work on a few things. By the dark of the competition, Carter had 4 or 5 dunks in the depository financial institution, but moments before the biggest showcase of his life he was 2d-guessing his entire program, leaving him scrambling from the start.

Carter Right before nosotros're about to go, I'chiliad notwithstanding trying to figure out the lodge of dunks. My listen raced. Am I going to keep my routine? Or am I going to flake it? So many nights and dreams of existence in the dunk contest, I wanted to make my kickoff trip a memorable ane. I was putting and so much pressure on myself to be perfect.

Paul Jones Sportscaster I'll never forget interviewing Carter [moments before the consequence]. I asked him if he was fix, how he idea he'd do. His shoulders were slumped, he was looking at the footing and he kept saying, "Human being, I don't know. I don't know." I'1000 thinking, Are you kidding?

Carter Leading up to the contest, our ride to go to the arena wasn't at that place. We're staying in San Francisco, and everyone is assigned a motorcar to have them from the hotel to the arena in Oakland. It didn't evidence upward. Nosotros're supposed to be outside at two. Two o'clock comes and in that location's no ride. All of these other all-stars' cars were showing up, but ours was nowhere to be found. There were v of u.s. and we had to squeeze into a sedan going from San Francisco to Oakland. We nearly didn't arrive. Things were turning out so bad. So that'southward where all the stress and everything leading up to that interview with Jonesy, all of that is factoring in.

Jones I was right in the tunnel for the interview, and I saw when he walked out onto the court, and his unabridged body language simply inverse the instant he stepped out there.

Carter I became another creature. Heading out onto the court I had my routine, but one time I got to the layup line—and maybe I was over-analyzing—I just all of a sudden felt it wasn't good plenty: a lot of catching it off the backboard, you lot know, nothing really special. Continuing at that place, looking at the field, and the respect I had for the other guys in the competition, I felt information technology wasn't good enough.

Right before I grabbed the basketball from the referee for my first dunk, I didn't know what I was going to do. I really didn't know. So I thought, What practise I want to reach with the look? I'one thousand looking for creativity, hang-time, and all the things I had been studying many years before. All of these years are coming into 1 night, one moment. And here I am, minutes before it's my chance to bear witness the world, and it's only like, Oh gosh, what should I do here?

I got the idea: 360 windmill. It was spur of the moment. I hadn't really considered doing that one because, weeks before when I was trying information technology, I was barely making it. When I incorporated the 360, peculiarly the first couple of times I tried, I kept falling abroad from the handbasket. I wasn't getting plenty height. That's why I scrapped it initially.

But backside every dunk I'm looking for that wow factor, that caste of added difficulty. To practice the windmill with an extended arm like that is hard enough, simply now to go the opposite way while doing information technology? There'southward the challenge. I felt like, If I could pull this off I'll be good for the rest of the night.

In one swift, shine motion, Carter propelled himself off the ground and spun 360 degrees confronting the grain while simultaneously pulling off the extended-arm windmill, roaring to the crowd equally the brawl crushed the mesh.

Smith That dunk fix the tone. You never wait in a dunk contest. And Vince didn't await. He didn't say, "All right, let me ease into this hither." He said, "I'm gonna kick the door in."

Glen Grunwald Raptors general manager from 1997–2004 It was a magical moment. Yous couldn't help merely go caught up with the spectacle of the upshot. The entire loonshit did. It was electrifying.

Carter The buzz in the building was unreal. In all my planning I really didn't gene in whatsoever of that. Not at all. There was this unbelievable fasten of adrenalin in my trunk and I didn't have to worry about not getting plenty tiptop anymore. At the terminate of that dunk I did an actress bounce off the floor when I landed. I felt like I could've gone back up and thrown down another windmill.

Smith That was the first time I saw someone dunk where everybody was running to the other side of the arena to be closer to Vince, merely this sea of people.

Carter At that moment I felt similar I could have pulled off anything. Excuse my French, but it was, "Oh shit, here we go."

But first somebody had to follow that deed. And barely one minute had passed since Carter had blown the roof off the articulation earlier Stackhouse'south name was chosen.

Stackhouse I don't know how they adamant the lodge, simply it certain wasn't alphabetical—I can tell you McGrady and Francis both come before "Southward" and after "Carter."

Terrence Ross Raptors guard and 2013 dunk-contest champion No disrespect to Stack, but after Vince did what he'd just done, everybody was preoccupied thinking about that. Information technology must've been tough.

Stackhouse I was still in awe of the dunk he did. Then I had to become after him and now I'k on the clock and everybody is even so buzzing virtually it. That was just kind of the luck of the draw. It'south i of those things—[I'll] go downward in history as the guy who had to go later Vince Carter. It is what it is. People might not have seen information technology, but I experience like I did a pretty good dunk [a powerful two-handed 360] on my first try.

Smith It was just all right. [Laughs.] After seeing what Vince just did? Yeah, that was only all right.

After Stackhouse'southward dunk, sideline reporter Cheryl Miller asked him, "Jerry, how tough was that deed to follow?" and he laughed. "You saw it," he said.

Carter I watched the other dunkers, but I was just… I was in some other zone after that [outset douse]. I had officially scrapped my dunk order, and now I'm scrambling trying to figure out where to go adjacent. What do I do next? I remember high-fiving each guy after they had gone, just I was still in my ain moment.

With a perfect score of l after one circular, Carter was living up to the hype early. Merely he was getting more competition than anybody expected—McGrady and Francis each scored 45 on their first dunks, and for his second, McGrady caught a bounce pass from Carter—that year there was a rule that each dunker had to apply a teammate for one of their dunks—for a ferocious ii-handed windmill alley-oop that scored him a 49. In that location was a existent contest breaking out.

Carter I couldn't relax. I know what Tracy can do. I've seen Steve Francis and the stuff that he was doing. I knew Ricky Davis was no slouch.

Dark-brown Tracy McGrady. Any other dunk contest he would have won. You had three guys who, had Vince not been in it, could take won it.

Stackhouse T-Mac wasn't actually on the scene. He was a little overshadowed past Vince hither in Toronto with Vinsanity and all that craze. But Tracy was neat in his own correct.

Carter He didn't want to practice it. I had to beg this guy. From the very beginning he didn't want to do it at all. I was like, 'The world needs to run into what nosotros can do." He has that ability. So I knew I had potent competition. Merely I knew that for me to lose, somebody was going to accept to do something out of this world.

On his second douse attempt, Francis, a rookie bespeak guard, bounced a pass to himself and reached way dorsum for an athletic leaning slam, scoring a 50 himself. Carter followed it with some other spinning, acrobatic windmill—this time from the baseline backside the basket—and scored a 49.

Carter What I was trying to do with that was to show the power to practice a windmill off of one pace while doing a reverse—merely from under the basket. So you lot still have to get your body from underneath and behind to out in front of the rim. While doing the 360. It was cool. It might've come off every bit an piece of cake dunk, merely that was another i I struggled with.

Tyler Ennis Milwaukee Bucks guard, Brampton, Ont., native That was an underrated douse.

Just two dunks in, the contestants' abilities seemed limitless. The all-stars surrounding the courtroom, like Shaquille O'Neal and Kevin Garnett, clutched their camcorders and stared in awe. "I must acknowledge, homo," Garnett said at the time, "I ain't never seen anything similar that. [Francis] is jumping like an astronaut, man. He and Vince Carter came with some From the Earth to the Moon–type stuff tonight."

Stackhouse Everybody was watching Vince, anticipating. What is he going to do side by side?

Carter All the players kept asking, "What are you going to do?" KG was with me during the McDonald'southward [high school] dunk competition so he'd seen me and knew what I could exercise. He kept maxim, "What now? Whatcha got now?" and I just said, "Lookout this."

Brown In '91 I had practised all of my dunks, a lot. Vince was studying previous dunk contests, just the stuff he was doing was just off-the-cuff.

Carter Maybe a week earlier the contest, I'thou skimming through a magazine and I see an ad for the "bound shoe," some device to help with your vertical. It was just a still shot of a man jumping, in mid-air, with the ball betwixt his legs. I saw information technology, flipped the page, that was it. I didn't give it another idea. I certainly didn't accept the epiphany, Oh, that'd be a skillful thought for the contest. Merely on the court that night that prototype popped into my head.

Because I had changed my whole routine past then, we had to come up with something right so and there. Tracy and I had never practised [in tandem]. I didn't even know nigh the teammate affair until we got there. Walking to the basket all I said to him was, "I need you lot to stand up off to the right of the rim, bounciness information technology well-nigh waist summit—well, it's actually chest elevation simply it would exist waist elevation for me in the air—and back up." He said, "What the hell are yous doing?" I said, "Just trust me on this ane."

I didn't want to give it away, talking to him and everybody sees it. Not that they'd overhear, but I didn't want people to come across me explaining it, seeing my hand motion, the reaction on Tracy's face. I wanted everything to be a surprise and in the moment-—that's why I was such a stickler nigh not missing any dunks. Then when the first laissez passer was a little too high for me, I could have probably tried to douse it, only I but allow information technology go. Essentially I just jumped in the air and came downward, and then you all the same couldn't have known what I was going to do.

hangin' with mr. carter Why collect style points by grabbing the rim with your easily when you lot can do it with your forearm? Well, because it'south dangerous, for one. Carter worried before his epic quaternary dunk that information technology'd break his arm.

Needless to say, the second laissez passer worked. Vince grabbed the brawl from mid-air and, but like in the poster, put the ball between his legs, transferring information technology from his right hand to his left, finishing with a thunderous slam. The crowd erupted, and as Kenny Smith started yelling what would get a catchphrase—"It's over!"—again and again, Carter looked into the camera and said the same.

Ross That one was my favourite. I had just never seen anything like that before.

Carter "You're crazy," was all Tracy said after the douse.

Smith That betwixt-the-legs was really a defining moment that started a new trend for dunking. Nowadays that might exist considered a pretty uncomplicated douse for some. Simply he created a trend that immune guys' imaginations to even consider that kind of stuff was possible.

Carter I'thou thinking, It'south over. I just made up a douse with my cousin that I've never practised. Information technology'due south over. I was able to pull off a dunk I had never tried, that I simply saw a picture of in a magazine, that I didn't really even know if I could do it or non. It's just… It's over. My confidence is through the roof correct at present. Information technology's over.

Smith That was how I felt, too. I don't think you can ready for those moments. When you lot're covering an effect like that, your enthusiasm or lack of information technology has to be authentic. "Information technology's over!" I hear information technology all the time now. People will come upwards to me and they have information technology as their phone ring.

Carter owned the building and had won over the judges and fans watching around the world. In the span of 20 minutes he went from star to supernova. But his almost groundbreaking dunk however was coming next.

Carter Information technology's one of those cases of "fake it 'til you lot make it." I desire to give the air of confidence, yet little do you know I'm still scrambling like, What the heck am I going to practise now? The year before, I was playing in Gary Payton'due south charity game in Seattle. In the layup line, I'd exist jumping over the rim and just dropping the ball in, like they used to do manner dorsum when they weren't immune to douse in college. And then I had decided I'k going to put my arm in the rim and driblet the brawl in there. OK, yeah, that's cool, but where'due south the wow cistron? I was going to hang up there.

Now I'm trying to effigy out, OK, exercise I come from the left side or the right? If I hold on, how exercise I brand sure I stay? I'm thinking, If I interruption my arm Butch [Carter, then-Raptors head bus] volition impale me. All of this is going through my head fast on the spot.

I tried to buy some time by walking it off. I can recollect it like it was yesterday. I walk upwardly to the rim, let out a sigh. I looked up. All right, well, I thought to myself, I approximate this is the jumping surface area. I looked at the front of the rim. I guess this is the hanging area. I rubbed my arm and idea, Hither goes nothing.

As I'm walking dorsum at present I've figured out what I wanted to do as far every bit the actual dunk. But I used to remember virtually Dee Brown pumping the shoes and I looked at the dunk competition like this: How tin yous get the fans in your pocket? Eating out of your paw?

Dark-brown Whenever nosotros talked about [the contest] I just told him, "Play to the crowd."

Carter Yous see, at that betoken, I'one thousand non looking for thank you. I want the loonshit to exist silent. Normally when you watch the douse contest everybody goes crazy, information technology's people screaming, going "Oh my God, did you lot run across that?!!" But how many times did you come across a douse get out the crowd speechless? Where you couldn't say a word until you saw the douse a second time. Until then they're just thinking, Wait a minute, did you merely…? Twenty thousand people have to wait upwardly at the Jumbotron at the same time to see what happened. Then comes the roar. That'due south what I was looking for. And I got it.

Think about it: Before 2000 there had been years of the dunk contest going on with dunks that we'd all seen. I want to mess your mind up.

Having leapt high enough and dunked with enough force to go his unabridged forearm in the rim and use information technology to hang upward there, Carter scored another perfect 50. He finally relaxed, thinking he was done for the dark, only to be told he had one more douse left. He decided to pay tribute to Julius Erving, sitting nearby at the judges' table, and took off for a two-handed slam from just inside the free-throw line. He earned a 48, his everyman score of the dark, but information technology didn't affair. He'd already put together the most memorable performance ever on a stage that had seen plenty.

Smith I don't recollect people will ever cease talking about that dark. Obviously it goes down every bit 1 of the greatest douse contests in the history of them all, with the only possible exception being Jordan vs. Dominique.

Carter To cap it off, the first person to greet me every bit I stepped off the court to the backstage surface area was Julius Erving. If y'all know me, you know that Dr. J is 1 of my heroes, i of my favourite people of all time. You lot win the contest, you're holding your trophy, you walk off and the kickoff person you see is your hero? I mean, it doesn't go whatever better.

Grunwald To make such a huge statement, to create so much attention and notoriety on i of the biggest stages in the NBA, it was great for the [Raptors] franchise. Information technology was a fun time. We were on a curlicue. Going into road arenas and seeing Raptors jerseys in places we'd never seen them earlier was special. Yous really got a sense the perception of the franchise had changed. That night had a lasting impact, without question.

Brown People came to our games to run across him douse. And when he didn't they were mad! Vince was skyrocketing at that point already, and the competition was function of his growth and the growth of the Raptors in Canada. You lot take kids—Canadian kids—in the NBA now who talk about it today. They watched Vince; they didn't watch me. That was their dunk contest.

Ennis I was very immature but I however call up watching that with my family unit. It was a big moment for him and the team, and put him on the scale as i of the all-time dunkers ever.

Ross I was like 10 or eleven watching it. Everybody already loved Vince because of all the dunks he did in games, but after that, only seeing him exit at that place and have so much fun with it—information technology felt like we were seeing a different side of Vince.

Carter It was merely so surreal. It's hard to imagine all these years afterwards now, that there was some kid just like you who's watching and trying to emulate it and do meliorate.

Thirteen years later that would ring true in a style that fifty-fifty Carter himself couldn't accept anticipated, when then-NBA-sophomore Terrence Ross took part in the contest, condign the fourth Raptor since Vince to practice then.

Ross I was representing Toronto in the 2013 douse contest, and the but person who'd won it for them was Vince, and so I knew I was going to contain that in some way. I got the thought to vesture his jersey, but I just needed the right dunk. Actually, DeMar [DeRozan] came upwardly with it. He was going to exercise it a few years back [in 2011] and told me to try information technology, this different version of the 360 windmill-type dunk. I talked to Vince after that, when he came [to Toronto] after that flavour.

Carter I heard from a lot of people wanting me to reach out to Terrence publicly on Twitter later on that, but who am I trying to impress? Personally, I wanted to expect until I could thank him face to face up and show my true respect for what he did that dark. I don't know what information technology meant to him. Possibly he just thought, "OK, absurd, capeesh it, Vince, whatsoever," but it meant more than for me to do that in person.

Ross He told me that he had seen information technology and was appreciative. I was like, "Homo, I'k but happy to be here in a position to do something like that." It was crazy.

Carter These days people say, "Oh, why didn't you lot defend it?" Yep, I could have. Just I didn't want to make a career out of it-—didn't desire people to expect me to be in that location every twelvemonth. Now if I didn't win it, that'due south a completely unlike ball game. You know, looking back, I had 2 dunks I could have tried that I didn't. And I tin can't tell you [what they are]. Nope. Can't tell anybody.

This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. Photo credits, from top: Garrett Ellwood/NBAE/Getty; Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty; Sam Forencich/NBAE/Getty; Jed Jacobsohn/Allsport

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Source: https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/the-oral-history-of-vince-carters-dunk-contest-win/

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