Basketball'Melo mania begins at MSG, dunk contest redux

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Carmelo Anthony has a new home court, much to the delight of Knicks fans. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Now that the wish of Knicks fans has come true and Carmelo Anthony is in New York, it's going to be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out in Gotham. They've added perhaps the best pure scorer in the NBA, and at last check on Tuesday scalpers were asking $12,000 US for floor seats at the Garden.

What it does for the Knicks on the floor - I suspect they will get an immediate shot in the arm from it - remains to be seen, but perhaps more importantly for a franchise that's been in an abyss for a decade, is put it back near the top of the centre of the universe's sports landscape.

With the exception of '86 Mets, New York has always been a Yankees town first, but at times - usually when the pinstripers were non-contending (early '70s, early '90s) - the Knickerbockers had the city's imagination.

This is basically what those fans from Queens, who boo every year at the NBA draft, have dreamed about. A transcendent superstar they can hang the franchise on. And Madison Avenue gets that sought-after celebrity they had hoped last year would come in the form of LeBron James. It doesn't matter that the team is worse off defensively than they were last Friday; this is a new hype machine that plays a Mike D'Antoni system anyways.

And if the rumours are true that Knicks advisor Isiah Thomas had a hand in the deal over GM Donnie Walsh, you've got to at least give Zeke credit for doing something previous team managers like Scott Layden tried and failed to do - bring an NBA superstar to MSG.

Which brings up the other side of the coin - they gave up too much to get him. Denver appears poised to turn around and trade Danilo Gallinari, while hanging onto solid players in Raymond Felton and Wilson Chandler. Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri deserves a ton of credit as a rookie GM for standing his ground and making a good trade in a very tough situation.

I can hear some Raptors fans now: "Why didn't Toronto keep Masai and fire Colangelo?"

Dunk contest redux, plus some past favs

One thing people have to realize about the NBA's slam dunk contest is that it's cyclical. It's like Saturday Night Live. It's really good for half a decade, sucks for another decade, and then shows glimpses of glory again. And I think most would agree that right now, despite the presence of Blake Griffin, it's not very good.

The problem is, there's nothing new under the sun. Just about every dunk performed last Saturday in L.A. has been done before -- with the exception of JaVale McGee's two-basket special and Griffin's winning leap over a product-placed automobile (However, bear in mind that car hoods are much rounder and smaller these days. It would have been much more difficult over the boat-like front end of a 1990 Chevrolet Caprice).

It's also worth mentioning that there was no way Griffin wasn't going to win that dunk contest in his home gym. Of course, DeMar DeRozan got ripped off, and to a lesser extent, McGee. In a league of conspiracy theory legend it's not hard to envision David Stern cackling in a large leather chair with a glass of cognac and a cat on his lap.

If you watch the '80s and early '90s dunk contests on YouTube, you realize that what you were seeing then was original. Dr. J and Michael Jordan taking off from the free-throw line were new. The explosive tomahawks of Dominique Wilkins in multiple contests were breathtaking because nobody else did stuff like that.

After peaking in about 1990, the dunk contest tailed off until it was dropped completely by the league in 1998. It was Vince Carter's acrobatics that brought it back in 2000. But now again, like everything else, we're numb to it.

Maybe forcing top players to participate would add value, but there's no way that's going to happen. So, should the NBA shelve the contest again, at least until the next athletic freak wing player enters the league?

The answer in my mind is no. It's still a noteworthy event. The problem is fans have come to expect too much from this thing. I mean, why is the home run derby at baseball's all-star game such a big draw? It's just guys hitting batting practice pitches over a wall. But with the dunk contest we almost want somebody to actually fly from half court to the rim. That's why the props are becoming more of a factor every year.

But with the ridiculous can come comedy, so they might as well stick with it. I'm just waiting for a unicycle or something to be involved.

That said, here are some of the best dunk contests of all-time in terms of overall performance, ranked with my own personal measurement system, the Savage Scale (explained below).

• Macho Man Randy (Former wrestler) - Excellent
• Herschel (Adult film star) - Good
• Brian (Former NHLer) - Fair
• Fred (Wonder Years) - Unsatisfactory
• Ben (Boy Meets World) - Poor

1988: Jordan outduels Wilkins on MJ's home floor in what many agree was the best edition of the event. WATCH. (Ranks a Macho Man Randy)

1990: Wilkins wins his second title in an event that also features sick moves from  Kenny "Sky" Walker, a lithe Shawn Kemp and Kenny Smith. Scottie Pippen also recreates MJ from the charity stripe. WATCH. (Macho Man Randy)

1987: Jordan wins his first, with arguably better moves than he showed the following year in '88. WATCH. (Herschel)

1986: Five-foot-seven Spud Webb beats teammate Wilkins. WATCH. (Herschel)

You could argue for more: Larry Nance and Dr. J in 1984; even Dee Brown and Kemp in 1991. Individually, the list of standout dunks is endless - Carter in 2000, Jason Richardson in 2003 and Isaiah Rider's "East Bay Funk Dunk" in 1994.

But when you make those comparisons to this year, to give 2011's overall contest a Savage Scale ranking, it would be no better than a Brian. But that's progress, because in 2010 it was a Ben.

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