For the first time in four seasons, the NBA Slam Dunk Contest will have a new winner, with reigning champion Mac McClung sitting out for this year’s competition.
McClung, who revealed in January that he was not participating in the event, recently opened up and explained his reasons for sitting out of the contest this season, telling HoopsHype that other players planned to sit out if McClung was going to participate.
“Originally, I told everybody I was done,” McClung, 27, said. “I retired after the third year, and they’re good friends of mine. We’re in contact a lot, and they were talking about this next year, and I was pretty much saying: ‘I’m not going to do it.’
“But I prepared anyway, just in case maybe I would. I think there was just back and forth of us being like this, and then they were calling me, being like ‘People didn’t want to do it if I was doing it’, and I thought it’s best if I just sit out this year and let it be, no matter what.”
McClung also said the players who were going to back out of the event were “big-name guys,” and that they were close to him.
“I know they were after a lot of big-name guys, and the situation may not have been clear, but they’re good friends of mine,” he added. “It wasn’t anything like ill will. We were just trying to figure it out together, and I felt there was a little bit of hesitation on both sides.”
McClung has won the past three dunk contests, becoming the first-ever player win the competition three times in a row.
His victories did come with criticism, however, as McClung has played in just 10 NBA games across four seasons, with teams often calling up the guard from the G-League just to participate in the All-Star Weekend event.
This season, McClung has played in just four NBA games with the Pacers and Bulls, spending 15 games in the G-League, where he is averaging 27.7 points and 7.5 assists while shooting 52 percent from the field.
Warriors forward Draymond Green has called out the process of teams signing McClung to a 10-day NBA contract just so he can compete, with the four-time All-Star saying that the dunk contest has “died down” because of the lack of star power in the event.
“I think with that it’s kind of died down like you’ve got guys in there that’s not in the NBA,” Green said of the dunk contest on his podcast back in December. “It’s crazy. … I worked this hard to be an All-Star and you can be in dunk contests without an NBA contract.
“We might as well get those guys that do all those crazy ass dunks. So, yeah, I’m not too stoked about it.”
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