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NBA ALL-STAR WEEKENDFebruary 13, 2015Dominique WilkinsNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK Q. How has the Dunk Contest changed throughout the years? Where would you list it right now? Where does the Dunk Contest stand in terms of spectacularity? DOMINIQUE WILKINS: That's a trick question. You know, it's changed a lot. It's changed. I personally would like to see more of the big players get involved in it. Do it at least once. But for whatever reason they feel like they don't want to get in it anymore. It kind of takes away from the Dunk Contest. But hopefully the guys in it this year put on a big show. Q. Develop a little bit more on that. The big guns are not here. Would you point any reasons the NBA has changed since your time? DOMINIQUE WILKINS: I just think guys back then wanted to compete more. We wanted to know who the best was. I don't think that's the case anymore. Q. So you say LeBron doesn't want to know if he's better than say the big guns -- DOMINIQUE WILKINS: I'm just saying they feel like they don't need to give -- they've got so much stuff going on in the weekend, that it's not something they want to do. But I did the Dunk Contest five times. For whatever reason the people have reasons for not doing it. I personally would like to see all the big guns in about it. Q. Do you remember having a negative impact in the second half of the season from the Dunk Contest? DOMINIQUE WILKINS: Negative impact? Why would you have a negative impact? It's just a part of your game. It's something do you for the weekend that gets the fans involved. How does that affect your game? I'm trying to understand that. I don't get it. Q. You were in it, Michael was in it, Julius was in it. Everybody was in it. DOMINIQUE WILKINS: All the big guns got in it and won the Dunk Contest, myself, Larry, Nance, Dr. J, Darrell Griffith and many more. Star players that was in it. But, again, we wanted to compete. Everybody wanted to win. Q. Even Larry Nance -- DOMINIQUE WILKINS: I was in that that time. That was my -- I think that was my first year. I was just in awe because Dr. J was there. I didn't put too much effort in the Dunk Contest that first one. After that I competed. Q. You won. DOMINIQUE WILKINS: I won four. I got credit for two. Q. In the '80s and '90s and maybe 2000s as well, the NBA was viewed as a more one-on-one and physical league. Now with the Hawks being named five starters as the Players of the Month and the brand of basketball the Spurs are playing -- DOMINIQUE WILKINS: It's just changed. It's changed. Q. Do you think that's being more valued, the ball circulation, player movement? DOMINIQUE WILKINS: There were teams back in our era -- I think the Denver Nuggets were the first team to play like that, to have the great ball movement. Five guys touch the ball. Because, again, not having a big time superstar on the team you relied on ball movement and shooters. They had guys that could shoot the ball. That's what we have on our Atlanta Hawks team. We have ten guys that can shoot the ball and we play defense. Not a lot of teams actually say they extend the defense on the wing and guard on the ball. And none of our big guys rarely ever get in foul trouble because of that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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