Aaron Gordon holds the undisputed crown of best Dunk Contest dunker to never win, as he appeared three times and put forth two classic contests, coming out just on the losing side of legendary battles with Zach LaVine and Derrick Jones Jr.
The first was an all-timer that didn’t feature much controversy, even if Gordon felt he should’ve won, but the latter saw accusations of improper judging by Dwyane Wade to help a Miami Heat player get the win. Gordon released a diss track about Wade after and changed his number to 50 in Denver (he’s since changed again to 32) to highlight how he had the most 50-point dunks in Dunk Contest history.
All of that is to say, Gordon believes strongly in his case for being one of the best to ever grace a Dunk Contest, and his dunk highlight reel from 2016 and 2020 is up there with the all-time best. To Gordon, it’s better than anyone’s Dunk Contest reel, as he told FanDuel’s “Run It Back” show on Wednesday, claiming his best four dunks are better than Vince Carter’s iconic 2000 performance.
It is a bold statement, to say the least, as Carter’s showing in 2000 is considered the best of all-time. That said, in a vacuum, Gordon is probably right. He has some truly outrageous dunks in his catalog (and has more contests to pull from), but it also highlights the challenge of comparing players across eras. What Carter did in 2000 was so wildly different than anything anyone had seen that it blew everyone’s minds. Now, we see guys do those same dunks (or even add a little bit more to them) in Dunk Contests. Gordon’s dunks are also things we’ve never seen, and because everyone builds on what we’ve seen before, they are even more difficult to execute than what Carter did.
I think what is a separator for Carter is he was doing things at a level no one could even come close to in his contest, while Gordon went up against two equals in LaVine and Jones Jr. Still, Gordon certainly has a case as one of the all-time greats, which makes it even more incredible that he never won one.