From Dr. J to Jordan, from Carter to LaVine, we can never guess what the next flying flyers will bring us, and of course, we won't know where the limits of humanity are. And what we can do as fans is to wait quietly and enjoy it quietly.

Forty years ago, Dr. J pioneered the free-throw line jump dunk in the dunk contest.

After that, "Flyer" Jordan carried this move forward, and his summit battle with Dominique Wilkins, the "best of human cinema", was regarded as the best matchup in the history of the slam dunk contest.

In 2000, a new generation of "flyers" redefined the limit of dunking, and he was the first dunking player in history, Vince Carter.

When everyone thought that after Carter, the dunk was dead, a very talented white dunk will awaken everyone's passion again! makes people sigh that Carter is already history, and the peak showdown between Jordan and Wilkins is also over, it was the best slam dunk contest in ten years!

At this moment, the past reappears in front of us. Dr. J, Jordan's free-throw line jump, Larry Nands' Wyvern in the sky, Francis's perverted fold, the nine-finger buckle blowing out the candles in the Green flat frame, Griffin flying over the car, and all of Carter's ......

The highest score in a single round of the Slam Dunk Contest was held by Carter, who scored 149 points for a total of 149 points with three dunks in the 2000 preliminaries, two for a perfect two, and one of them. Jordan and Wilkins both scored 147 points.

Larry Nance was the inaugural slam dunk contest champion, and Jordan was the first player to defend his title in the dunk contest. In the history of the Slam Dunk Contest, only Jordan, Richardson and Nate Robinson have defended their titles. Nate is also the only player to win the dunk title three times.

In the history of the slam dunk contest, a total of 25 people have deducted a perfect 50 points, Jordan leads with six, and Wilkins and Richardson are tied for second with five. However, Jordan scored six perfect points with 25 dunks, compared to three perfect points with only five dunks in 2000, and the latter scored a staggering percentage of perfect points.

In addition, the youngest slam dunk king was Kobe Bryant, who was only 18 years old at the time; The highest dunk king is Howard; The shortest dunk king is "Potato" Webb; The farthest dunk was a free-throw line dunk at around 5.4 meters, and the lowest single dunk score record was 2 points, set by Celtics player Minore in 1996.

Since it is a slam dunk contest, there are nothing more than three highlights: one is the dunk itself; the second is the star; The third is all kinds of props and gimmicks. And the most exciting slam dunk contest is, of course, when the superstars meet in the finals and stage a blood-pumping dunk. For example, in 1988, Jordan and Wilkins collided with the Earth like Mars, and in 2000, Carter, Francis and Maddie competed at the pinnacle.

But in an age where superstars refuse to participate in the dunk contest, that can't happen again. But in 2015, LaVine, the king of slam dunk, became a god and reinterpreted dunk into an art. He has become the golden sign of the slam dunk contest and the hope of the event's revival. Therefore, the biggest attraction of the 2018 All-Star Slam Dunk Contest is who can become another player who can become a god with a dunk after LaVine.

Like the slam dunk contest, there are many legends about the three-point contest, but there is one more thing worth saying before talking about the three-point contest today...

That's the revolution in the three-point shot ...

Back in 1967, legendary center George McCann became the new president of the NBA's main rival, the ABA League. In order to attract fans, he introduced three-point shooting to the ABA beginning in the 1967-68 season.

Kentucky Colonels guard Louis Dampier was the first player to master the technique perfectly, with the six-foot-tall guard hitting 794 three-pointers in his nine-year ABA career, more than 300 more than anyone else.

"Louie was one of the first to do that," said ESPN commentator Hubby Brown, a veteran coach who coached Dampier for two seasons, "and one of the best players of all time." ”

During a training session, Dampier had a chance to make a two-on-one jump, but instead of attacking the basket directly, he dribbled to near the three-point line and tried a 25-foot shot. Today, this may not be a new thing, but at the time? "I immediately stopped training." Brown recalled.

Either way, the excitement of the three-point shot was so obvious that the NBA, three years after annexing the ABA, decided to include it in the new rules in the 1979-80 season. George Carr, who played and coached in both leagues, recalls the scene vividly: "The NBA was against the three-point shot in the beginning because it came from the ABA, and for a few years, NBA players were always saying, 'That's not a good shot, that's playground basketball!'" ’”

In the first decade of the introduction of the three-point shot, Pat Riley's Lakers were a dominant force in the league, making just 13 three-pointers in his first season at the helm, 1981-82, but the team still won the championship.

"At the time, it wasn't what we were used to," Riley recalls, "and at first, it was just a ploon. At that time, the league had its own philosophy of the game, and even if the three-point shot existed, it was still not the focus, and it was only tried if you were two points behind to win the game, or three points behind to tie the score. ”

It wasn't until a few years later that teams began to focus on the three-point shot as a means of opening up space for interior players. By the 1986-87 championship season, Riley's Lakers three-point shooting rate had risen to sixth in the league.

The Lakers' leading three-pointer at the time was guard Byron Scott, who made more than 2,000 three-pointers throughout his NBA career. But when it comes to three-point shooting, he has the same attitude as his mentor: "We always say, 'It's a double-edged sword,' our battlefield is on the inside, and we don't have to use it as a conventional weapon." "This season, the Lakers, led by Scott, only rank 26th in the league in three-point shooting.

Larry Bird's shooting is a spectacle, and the three-point shot is no problem for him, but the legendary superstar rarely practices his long-range shots, and he doesn't even like and doesn't often try them in games. Until the age of 30, Bird had not averaged more than three three-point attempts per game in a season.

"I remember back then, if somebody was standing outside the three-point line, you weren't even going to chase it out." Bird recalled, "Vote, we didn't guard against that position at all, and bet they wouldn't dare to vote." ”

In the 1980-81 season, when the Celtics won the championship, they attempted 241 three-pointers in the regular season, which ranked second in the league -- for comparison, Curry made 242 three-pointers by himself this season just after All-Star weekend.