Celebrating the 25th anniversary of the greatest NBA Slam Dunk competition.
It’s almost unfathomable that arguably the greatest dunk contest in NBA history is celebrating its 25th anniversary this weekend. A full quarter-century! The year was 2000. The dawn of the bling era. The ball had just dropped on the new millennium. The first iPhone was still seven years away, and the number one song was “Breathe” by Faith Hill. Meanwhile, Gladiator ruled the box office. And in the midst of it all, the greatest basketball player, and arguably the greatest dunker, in NBA history had been retired for 18 months.
The NBA’s annual Dunk Contest, once the crown jewel of All-Star Weekend, peaked during the late ‘80s, fueled by three unforgettable showdowns between Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins. By the time the ‘90s rolled around, the event lost its luster, with both player creativity and fan excitement dimming year by year. Sure, the ’90s dunk contests had legendary moments and iconic dunks—Isaiah Rider introduced the world to the Eastbay Funk Dunk in 1994 and Cedric Ceballos wowed everyone blindfolded—but its appeal just wasn’t the same.
After Kobe Bryant replicated Rider’s between-the-legs dunk in 1997 and failed to score a 50, the NBA shelved the Dunk Contest altogether in 1998. In its place came 2-Ball, a new skills competition pairing an NBA player with a WNBA player. While the 2-Ball concept had potential, especially with the WNBA still in its infancy, it would never generate the same buzz as the Slam Dunk Contest. Unsurprisingly, fans’ interest in All-Star Weekend continued to slip.
Then, like the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea, a new wave of talent blessed the NBA with athleticism never seen before.
A lockout shortened the 1998-99 season and, consequently, there was no All-Star Weekend. With future Hall of Famers either retired or heading there, a new generation of stars was ascending. Vince Carter, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, and Allen Iverson were becoming the faces of the league. The 1999 NBA Draft introduced several future franchise players, but none more electrifying than “The Franchise” himself, Steve Francis.
Elite athleticism has always defined pro sports, with some athletes dominating through size and others with raw talent, speed, or ball-handling skills.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the league was full of exceptional talents, but few had it all. MJ and Dr. J could fly but weren’t the best shooters or handlers. Magic revolutionized passing but played closer to the floor, while Larry Bird controlled the game with his shot and strategy. The one thing all these legends had in common? None stood under 6’6”.
So how did Steve Francis break that mold and defy gravity? “Growing up in the DC area we had a lot of fences, we had some hills. I did a lot of hills.” Francis reflected, “I ran cross country . . . I also played a lot of football too. I played a lot of different sports and I think, as I grew into my height between 18, 19, 20, I started growing, I guess that’s when my athletic abilities started to catch up with my feet and my hands.”
As Stephon Marbury and Allen Iverson set the tone in the late ‘90s for high-flying point guards who could do it all, Steve Francis took it to another level in 1999. The rookie out of Maryland redefined “athleticism”. “At the beginning of the season, I was just trying to dunk everything I could get my rookie year. That’s all that I was just trying to do was just dunk and cross people up.”
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Listed at 6’3”, he possessed similar traits to every one of the aforementioned legends. He credits his crossover, as lethal as Iverson’s, to studying the footwork of 7’0” center Hakeem Olajuwon. He threw no-look passes like Magic, and when it came to elevating, he soared like MJ, Dominique, and Dr. J combined. “Jordan’s lean dunk . . . because of how it looked in slow motion . . . just to see that, was something I always wanted to do.” Francis remembers, “I used to like the way Clyde Drexler used to glide.”
The way Francis soared, though, was unlike anyone else in the history of the NBA. Sure, Spud Webb stunned us with his gravity-defying dunk contest win in ‘86, but in-game, those leaping abilities were a rare sight. Iverson and Marbury had hops, but they came back down to Earth almost as fast as they went up. Not Steve. He hung in the air like he had all the time in the world, a trait reminiscent of legends like Jordan and Dr. J. The main difference? He was doing everything they did up in the air, the high-flying dunks and acrobatic finishes over defenders who towered six to twelve inches above him, all without the ability to palm a basketball.
With players like Francis, Vince Carter, and Tracy McGrady dunking in games like no one had ever seen before, the NBA recognized the surge in talent and brought the Slam Dunk Contest back in 2000 as its marquee event. Two-and-a-half decades later, fans still consider that edition the greatest Dunk Contest of all time.
With his electrifying in-game dunks dominating SportsCenter’s Top 10 highlights and a lucrative Reebok shoe deal packed with incentives tied to in-game dunks and the Slam Dunk Contest, Francis was destined to make a massive splash in the 2000 contest in Oakland, California.
“When I got the call, everybody in Houston, all of my teammates were happy. They were all trying to give me some input on what dunks I should do, and I would try some after practice, but I was like, I got this! I wasn’t really practicing to win like the other guy.”
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Some might call it fate, others destiny, but the moment Francis arrived in Oakland for All-Star Weekend, he could feel something special about to unfold. “We stayed at the St. Francis Hotel.” Francis remembered, “Being a rookie, (participating) in the legendary dunk contest, where everybody was at—when I saw the name, it said ‘Francis.’ I already felt lucky seeing the name Francis.”
With a star-studded dunk contest lineup featuring Francis, Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, Larry Hughes, Jerry Stackhouse, and Ricky Davis, the stage was set for an epic showdown. Under the bright lights, with Hollywood’s biggest stars, music icons, and the entire NBA watching, Francis knew he had to deliver something special, he just didn’t exactly know what that would be.
“I pretty much improvised. That first dunk, I just looked around and just threw the ball up because I was just happy after seeing so many people. I was like, you know what man, let me just throw this ball up and see what happens.”
For his first dunk attempt. Francis launched the ball in the air from half-court setting himself up to catch the ball of the bounce. Then, like a rocket, (no pun intended) he exploded off the floor, snatching the ball out of the air with one hand and hammering down a vicious tomahawk slam.
“I pretty much improvised. That first dunk, I just looked around and just threw the ball up because I was just happy after seeing so many people. I was like, you know what man, let me just throw this ball up and see what happens.”
The new jump meter that TNT put in place that year showed Francis’s leap reach forty inches. Upon instant replay, fans at home were able to see what only Steve knew right away. Due to his inability to palm the ball, Francis briefly lost possession of the ball mid-flight, causing him to instinctively adjust in the air as the ball rolled down his wrist.
The judges, however, weren’t privy to the same replays, leaving Francis short-changed and frustrated with a score of 45.
During his first post-dunk interview with sideline reporter Cheryl Miller, Francis expressed his frustration. “I could’ve caught it further, but the ball slipped out my hand.”
Photo by Andy Hayt/NBAE via Getty Images
With Francis’ first dunk in the books, Vince Carter stepped up for his turn. Everyone knew he was the favorite before the weekend even began. The contest was loaded with talent, but this was Vince’s stage to turn the wide-open competition into the Vince Carter Show. “Coming into that dunk contest with all those groupies being the judges, I already knew what was going to happen.” Francis explained, “Just like in college basketball if Dick Vitale says your name, you know a lot of people are going to look at you. So, in this dunk contest, they were already saying the name before we started.
As Vince completed his first dunk, a never-seen-before reverse 360 windmill, the Oakland Coliseum crowd erupted in shock. “I was like, what the f*** was that?!” Francis remembered, “Every dunk he did, I still couldn’t believe. The degree of difficulty of him changing hands in the air, him putting his hand inside the basket, those are all 50 dunks.”
The bar was set high for Francis’ second dunk attempt, but the Takoma Park-bred point guard never shied away from adversity. As he made his way toward the scorer’s table along the left sideline, he stopped next to former Rockets guard and dunk contest judge Kenny Smith. With a confident grin, he told him, “Watch this, I’m bringing it back to the H.”
With Kenny’s undivided attention and the entire arena locked in, Francis launched another deep lob, this time from about 40 feet out. As he took flight and prepared to catch it off the bounce, he somehow soared past the ball, forcing yet another mid-air adjustment. But this time, there was no slip of the ball. Francis reached so far behind, that he snatched the ball near the bottom of his right hip and managed to bring it back up with one hand for a ferocious double-pump tomahawk slam.
“That one was actually gonna be a backwards dunk, but I couldn’t turn enough. Once the ball filled up my hand a little bit, and I felt it, I could try to manipulate it to get back into my power hand, so once it got back up, I was just like, let me just cock it back a little bit more and then I just heard the crowd.”
The crowd erupted just as loud as they had for Vince’s opening dunk. As far as Kenny and the other judges? They gave it the same respect, throwing up straight 10s for a perfect 50. became legendary, immortalized on posters, magazine covers, t-shirts, and every all-time dunk contest highlight reel you can think of.
Photo by Andy Hayt/NBAE via Getty Images
Unlike his first two dunk attempts, for his third and final dunk attempt of the first round, Francis and Rockets teammate Cuttino Mobley had planned a dunk to complete as a pair that no one had ever attempted before. It was one of the only dunks they actually rehearsed. But just before Steve’s turn, Grant Hill and Jerry Stackhouse foiled their plan. “Me and Cuttino were talking about (the bend down, and jump over) in the back, and we saw Jerry Stackhouse and Grant Hill, and we were just wondering why the heck they kept looking at us? And then just kept laughing at us while saying things like, Steve you’re gonna win.”
Francis had no clue what Stackhouse and Hill were plotting. When the time came for the contestants’ third dunk attempts, Francis could only sit back, watch, and eventually laugh at the two Piston veterans who tried and ultimately failed miserably to run off with his dunk.
But now without a gameplan, Francis had to improvise the rest of the way. “After that, there was nothing else.” Francis recalled, “After I saw them fail at the dunk Cuttino and I wanted to do, everything else was improvised after that.”
Although Francis missed his third attempt, his impressive performance advanced him to the Finals against Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.
You know how the rest unfolded. Vince Carter’s near-perfect performance of the night brought him the trophy. Francis, even with a second-place finish, put the world on notice that there was a new star in H-Town who could F.L.Y.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of our spotlight on Steve Francis, where he talks about teaming up with Yao Ming in Houston and the two trades that brought him to Orlando and New York.