Even Jeremy Lin Can’t Save the Awful 2012 NBA Slam Dunk Competition

New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin can do a lot of magical things. He’s faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. And he’s made the Knicks a relevant basketball team again, which is actually a more admirable feat than any of that other stuff. But even he, the guy who Chuck Norris and the World’s Most Interesting Man modeled their lives after, can’t save the embarrassing 2012 NBA Slam Dunk Competition.


To be fair, the Slam Dunk contest has been dying a slow and painful death for years now. What was once a competition based on athletic prowess and creativity officially hit rock bottom last year when it devolved into a rigged, corporate-sponsored waste of time. Even still, a rigged corporate sponsored waste of time with Blake Griffin in the lead role is better than what we’re getting this year: Iman Shumpert (who?), Derrick Williams (who?), Paul George (who?) and Chase Budinger (who?) battling it out for who can complete the least unimpressive jam in the least amount of failed tries.


The only thing that folks could possibly get hyped up about in relation to this mess is the guaranteed participation of Lin and wonderkid Ricky Rubio as “passers,” but even that is, to use a scientific term, “meh.”


Seriously, is this the NBA’s way of killing off the dunk contest? Inserting four people whose own families won’t even bother tuning in to watch? Given the way that all high-profile stars starting with LeBron James and ending with Griffin have snubbed the competition, it’d make sense.


We don’t know who will ultimately end up winning the 2012 NBA Slam Dunk Competition, but we do know who’s going home with the L: the NBA and all the fans who eagerly (and foolishly) awaited this contest.


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