There aren’t that many things we consider to be indisputably, universally courageous. Running into a burning building, that’s up there. Plenty of things get offhandedly referred to as brave — eating really spicy food, going out in public in pajamas — but are definitely not. To perform in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest is likely not high on many people’s list of what constitutes as courageous, but it’s a hill I will stubbornly camp out on. Until recently, it was a lonely hill, but when three-time Dunk Contest Champion Nate Robinson joins you on the hill, it’s lonely no longer.
Robinson has been appointed AT&T’s Chief Dunk Officer (CDO) of this year’s contest, in part because he’s the only person to have won the Dunk Contest three times and because to watch Robinson play basketball is to recognize a consummate showman.
Over his 11 seasons in the NBA (plus two stints overseas and one in the G League), Robinson made the most of what appeared to be a unique and direct manipulation of gravity through his game. Whether weaving through traffic in limbo slants with his torso gone one way and his legs another, darting into the paint after he’d faked out a team’s entire defense (he went under and through Sebastian Telfair’s legs once to make a layup), jack-knifing his 5’9 frame way up into the air for obscene blocks and perfectly timed alley-oop dunks, taking breezy fadeaways from way out, Robinson understood that what he didn’t have in size he could easily make up for in energy and a keen sense of the game as, well, a game.
He played surging with joy and watching him, you couldn’t help but feel it coursing through you, too.
“When I played basketball, when I was on the court, nothing made me happier,” Robinson says brightly, on a call with Dime ahead of All-Star Weekend. “I didn’t think about anything that was going on in my life, anything bad or anything that I was stressing [about]. I enjoyed my moment in that time, right then and there, and nothing else was going to derail me from enjoying basketball.”
During his playing career, Robinson faced criticism from other players and occasionally from the media, along with complaints that he didn’t take things seriously enough. He was playful, he worked the crowd, and he stood out because he didn’t fit in. He wasn’t immune to the commentary, but it never mattered. The way he saw it, he could only be himself.
“At some point we’re all going to mature in our lives, no matter if it’s now, earlier years, middle, or late in life. You’re gonna mature. But one thing my mother and my father always told me is be yourself, and if they don’t like who you are — excuse my language — then f*ck ‘em.” He says simply. “They don’t like you, okay, that’s on them. You’re going to be the person God made you to be and who we raised you to be, which is respectful, always trying to make people smile, and being the light of the situation or the time. Be the life of the party; be a reason why somebody smiles. And that’s what I wanted to do.”
It’s that spark of joy — and showmanship — that Robinson wants to see injected back into the Dunk Contest, an event he’s watched go through its ebbs and flows in popularity. For him, the night has always represented a jumping-off point, often for the tectonic, league-shifting careers we still talk about.
“The Dunk Contest, some of the greatest players of all time have done it,” Robinson says. “Dr. J, Dominique Wilkins, Michael Jordan, Spud Webb, Zach LaVine — the guys that you see now — Vince Carter, Jason Richardson — so many greats — Tracy McGrady! They made their names — Kobe Bryant as well — in the Dunk Contest as rookies first, as young guys. And then they solidified being a Hall of Famer and All-Star and all that stuff.”
In Robinson’s mind, the wane of the contest as a genuine runway to career success and standing out in a league stacked with pros has come with the rise of social media.
“Nobody wants to be a meme, nobody wants to get embarrassed. Once the internet started popping off, it was kind of hard. You can’t do anything silly, you can’t tarnish your legacy-type deal,” Robinson says. “If people weren’t so cruel and mean on social media, because they can say what they want and post what they want, and add their own two-cents, I think it hinders guys to want to do something like this, because they don’t want to lose and they don’t want to look silly.”
It seems silly, out of context, that athletes at this level would be embarrassed by much on the floor. Within the contextual fabric of our contemporary always logged-on lives, where people can see anything and nothing that happens within the internet’s indeterminable reach goes away, it makes sense. The current cohort of Dunk Contest-eligible athletes has never known a life without social media and its looming shadow.
That’s where the courage comes in. To go out in front of an arena audience, in front of your peers, where everyone has their phones up and recording and ready, is a visual hurdle Robinson and the dunkers of his day didn’t have to deal with. Even Shaq’s giant camcorder seemed subtle in comparison. Mulling over the courage it must take, Robinson adamantly interjects.
“Yeah! Because imagine, it’s going to be forever,” he says. “When you mess up, or do something crazy like, say somebody tried to jump over somebody and their shorts got caught on the back of their head and they fall — it’ll be a meme forever. That’s how they’re going to be remembered, and I think they don’t want to do that.”
Robinson draws an apt parallel between Michael Jordan, the person who is still debated fiercely as being the greatest of all time, and Crying Jordan, the meme. He notes that some people don’t know Jordan as anything other than the meme.
“When I grew up playing, he made me want to play basketball. He made it cool to be a guy that can work hard and you can do anything you want to do,” Robinson recalls, referring to the ‘Be Like Mike’ commercials. “Now, with social media, it makes it a little awkward because people want to be so negative. Not like a bullying thing, but just being negative, it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
Social media’s not going anywhere, but there is one place Robinson can beam his brand of levity onto. In his role as inaugural CDO, Robinson will provide his expert analysis on what it takes to win the Dunk Contest, leading up to and during the main event on All-Star Saturday Night through AT&T’s social channels. He’ll also chat with this year’s contestants and help them prep, all of whom he’s excited to watch but with a couple standouts.
“I’m actually interested in seeing what Jaime Jaquez Jr. can do. I’ve never seen him do any kind of dunk. I know he can ball, and he’s a real good hooper, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him dunk on anybody before so for him to be in the Dunk Contest is a surprise,” Robinson admits. “And of course, Mac McClung, to see if he’s topping what he did last year. If he can top what he did last year, he has it in the bag.”
As last year’s winner, the bar was already high for McClung. Winner repeats in recent years have been rare. Aaron Gordon gave it his all three times and finished as runner-up twice. What’s more, McClung was dubbed the savior of the Dunk Contest last year.
Robinson admits it’s tough to beat anybody, let alone yourself, but asked whether he ever psyched himself out thinking about it pre-Contest and he chuckles, “Nahhh, you just gotta go in there and follow the dunk that you want to do, save your real good dunks for the championship rounds, and be creative. Get the crowd on your side, by dancing or involving fans. That’s how you win. You get the fans on your side.”
What about clues, though, feints or giveaways that a dunk is going to be a dud or a showstopper? Do those exist, and can experts like Robinson clock them before someone has even started their run to the basket? Or are all dunks a mystery to everyone but the dunker?
“You really don’t know. You just gotta wait at the edge of your seat and you gotta hope that each dunker can bring a certain kind of creativity,” he concedes, but he does have tips. “You gotta have some swag. You gotta tap into your, I don’t know if it’s acting skills or showmanship, but you gotta be a showman. You gotta bring something to life.
For me, I always use big arms when I’m going. If I throw a lob to myself, I would just throw it as high as I can and see how high I can get up to dunk it, and then throw your body any kind of weird way and just do something. [Laughs.] You just try to do something that’s never been done and you hope you make it.”
Robinson has made a lot out of making the most. In his career, for those in-game, precisely timed alley-oop dunks he was a master at, he preferred bad passes from teammates over precise ones. The bad passes made for better dunks.
“Sometimes the bad lobs are the best lobs — to me,” Robinson says, in something that can be borrowed as a mantra. “The bad alley-oops are the best ones. The worst ones that they can throw are the best ones, ‘cause it makes you turn your body a certain way, makes you jump a little higher, makes you reach back, makes you do something.”
In one of the most personal struggles he’s faced, Robinson’s also taken the bad and inverted it. A kidney issue he was first diagnosed with in 2006 when playing for the Knicks worsened in 2018. He needs a transplant and undergoes dialysis three times a week to manage his condition, but his struggle has only sharpened his perspective, one of determined positivity.
“I use it every day,” Robinson says of his positivity, “Every day is a choice to be happy. I choose to be happy. I choose to wake up happy, and thankful. God has blessed me with so much, how can I not be happy? Even when things like this are happening with my kidneys, I can’t be mad.”
What helps him is thinking outside himself, of people younger than him struggling with the same diagnosis.
“You know how many kids are in high school that have kidney failure?” Robinson asks. “And they want to play sports, and they want to do the things they want to do, and they can’t at their full capacity because they’re sick. I know what they’re going through. It’s hard. But I want to be the reason, like, if Nate Robinson can do it, then I can do it. That’s how I look at it.”
To be brave in the face of the unknown even when the physical toll brings you low, to strive to improve the situations of other people — this is courage. It’s easier to understand Robinson’s joy and love for an event that puts courage on display through much lower stakes despite its high-flying flare. He’s always maintained his sense of levity, working on it, tuning it up.
To that end, dunks are the perfect alchemy of joy and courage, going in tandem. For Robinson, whom the motion always appeared to flow and look like a reflex for, the fuel never ran out.
“When you’re a dunker, you dunk so many times,” Robinson says. “You’ve missed so many, and you’ve made so many. And now you’re practicing with nobody around, just throwing the ball up in the air. You just gotta lose yourself inside the Dunk Contest and what you’re doing. Just have fun like a kid in a candy store.”