Paul Jones

Paul Jones is the voice of the Raptors on the FAN 590 and writes regularly for Sportsnet.ca.

DeMar DeRozan's first dunk of the night.

Well DeMar DeRozan took the first step last night and will be looking to be only the second Raptor ever to walk away with the title of NBA slam dunk champion.

If you're a Raptor fan, love him or hate him, Vince Carter turned the trick in 2000 in San Francisco and combined with his exciting play and highlight reel game dunks over the next few seasons, he single-handedly put Toronto on the NBA map.

DeRozan won the All-Star Dunk-In against Eric Gordon with two solid dunks. For those people that say they were average or unspectacular, unless you can do what the rookie did, then don't say anything about them being boring. They may not have been the most creative dunks in the world but he had to get them down and the first jam, the between the legs special is tougher than it looks. As I have said before, that's when you know you have done, or are doing a good job because everybody says, "that's no big deal" or, "I could do that." It sounds like DeRozan will be more creative and bring out the heavier artillery tonight when he ramps it up for the main contest as evidenced by the post on his twitter page afterwards which read, "Light work. Now got to bring out the tricks for tomorrow night. Oh and thanks for the votes."

There was never a doubt in this space that DeRozan would get into the main event on Saturday night. A: Because Raptor fans are so rabid and would probably "stuff the ballot box" with text messages. B: Once I saw Eric Gordon go into his Nate Robinson impersonation missing dunks and putting me to sleep all I can say is, "thank goodness for a time limit."

By the way, the conspiracy theorist in me says Robinson was handed the dunk championship last season with his "Krypto-Nate act" because the league wanted something in New York to have some relevance. And I don't care what anybody else did, when Dwight Howard dunks on a bucket that's 12-feet high, he should win it!

But back to Carter's heroics in 2000 and what most people did not see before the competition.

Let's apply some perspective here. The league had just come off a season where the all-star game was cancelled in 1999 because of the lockout and the dunk contest had been taken off the board in 1998 because, well to be very candid, it was boring and no longer exciting the masses. To be honest, it was once my favourite event on All-Star Saturday night but now ranks somewhere behind the long-distance shootout which is a true test of skill and what the game is all about, putting the ball in the basket.

While the dunk contest seemed made for Carter what many were unaware of was Carter's lack of confidence before he took to floor that February evening in San Francisco. I had a chance to interview Carter, in an exclusive one-on-one for national television, and when the interview concluded, a quiet and somber Carter walked away from the microphone with his head down. After catching up to him on my way to the court and saying, "it's your time," he responded with raised eyebrows, a side-to-side shake of his head and a sigh that said "I'm not so sure." That's right, just minutes before walking through the curtain and bringing down the house with dunks that had judges jumping on tables and his peers on the sidelines reacting with disbelief in what they had witnessed, Vince Carter was not sure he could pull it off.

It doesn't sound like that will be the case for the Raptor rookie taking part tonight. In the lead up to this weekend, he has been quietly confident in his ability and if he brings out his creativity and gets them down, who knows what might happen.

Lets be straightforward, a dunk contest is artificial and tough to judge because it can be quite subjective and currently it's not about the dunk but rather the creativity and lead up as well as the reaction after the dunk that factor into the score. It's tough to judge because the contrived atmosphere is so sterile.

So what makes a good dunk in a game? One that I call a "seat mover", a dunk where you come out of your chair because it was unexpected, it involved great athleticism in the heat of the game with nine other dudes on the floor. Surprise me in a game with your stuff and you get a 10 every time, until then, only certain dunks on a Saturday night really grab my attention.