NBA All-Star Weekend.. Love it or not? One of the great experiences was (always is!) the slam-dunk contest. This year saw a repeat from last year’s dunk-champ. Got some help from our favorite Big Man, too!
Interesting tidbit: This year’s winner was Mac McClung. He’s been on the roster of the Los Angeles Lakers, but as of right now, he’s in the NBA G-League, with the Osceola Magic. Interesting Shaq connections there already, eh?
McClung won last year, and this year he pulled off the repeat. The young player with some amazing leaping skills was on display again this weekend, wowwing the fans and other NBA players alike. As McClung was setting up his dunk, he called out to Shaq, who joined him on the court in Indianapolis. McClung had a giant-sized jersey from his old high school team, and Shaq put it on for the show. Yes, it actually (pretty much) fit!
While he missed on his first attempt, he made the amazing jam work on attempt number two. Both times, he successfully vaulted over Shaq – just by jumping, no extra equipment needed! – to make it work. Shaq faced away from the approaching McClung, aimed toward the hoop, holding the ball on top of his head. Check the video below for the amazing action.
The BIG Podcast with SHAQ
When it was all over, McClung and Shaq exchanged a hug. Afterwards, McClung told courtside reporters that the final dunk involving O’Neal was actually his “backup plan,” and that he had another trick in mind that he thought would be even more spectacular.
McClung: “That was the backup option. The other one was a little better maybe. I won’t tell that one.” Maybe we’ll see it next year? McClung continued, “I know Chuck (Millan) is probably mad I didn’t use the other one. No, Shaq is so cool to put on my high school jersey. Makes me emotional that he did that. When he put it on, he said, You better not miss a dunk. And I was like, All right, I won’t miss it.”
The big man got a lot of love for wearing McClung’s high school jersey for the final dunk. “What a cool guy to do that, man. What a great guy to do that for myself and my hometown. I think that just shows who he is now. Just really cool of him.”
So the question is (at least for us), where did McClung get that super-sized (Shaq-sized) high school jersey? Turns out his parents had it made, specially for the slam-dunk contest. McClung says it was not a last-minute thing: “No, it was preparation. I told my parents the idea, and they hopped on it maybe five, six weeks ago.”
Did you see it? The dunk itself – on the second attempt – was downright amazing, and turned out to be the only perfect scoring performance as determined by the judges. Up to that moment, Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown was in the lead for the contest. The perfect score put McClung over the top.
So.. will he (like Shaq and the Lakers) go for the three-peat? In a post-contest interview, McClung sounded interested, but not one hundred percent committed to next year’s competition. We’re guessing he’s hoping to be on a top-tier NBA roster by then. We hope he gets the move up as well.
As of this year, Nate Robinson is the only player that has won the Dunk Contest three times, but not in a row. He won it in 2006, 2009 and 2010.