NBA ALL-STAR SLAM DUNK

February 18, 2023

Trey Murphy III

Press Conference

Q. Incredible performance. How did it feel?

TREY MURPHY III: It was great. Obviously, the crowd was energized, and it was just a fun experience. We wanted to bring the Dunk Contest back. I definitely feel like that was our goal as a group. We were, like, let's make it a show. Let's give the fans what they want to see.

Glad we were able to do that.

Q. What did you think about the score on that third dunk? The TNT guys thought that it was more like a 49 instead of a 46. Is that how you felt?

TREY MURPHY III: Obviously, I definitely thought it was a better dunk than that. I feel like a lot of times you get penalized for being tall. They don't really look at the height of how far you get off the ground.

It is what it is at the end of the day. It's nothing I can control, so I just did what I could. It is what it is.

Q. When you talk about being tall, it looked like you almost made it look effortless out there. How do you change that? Do you go on a higher rim? How do you change that?

TREY MURPHY III: No, I mean, when you go on a higher rim, then it doesn't look like -- you're not able to do as much stuff, so it doesn't look as cool. It takes away from that as well.

I mean, it's tough. It's definitely a tough balance because you you've got to do that extra mile in order for it to look spectacular because you are tall. I feel like jumping high and getting your head to the rim is sufficient. It is what it is.

Q. How many dunks did you try out? How many dunks were you confident in?

TREY MURPHY III: I definitely had five. I had another one that I had. Looking back on it, maybe go to that one. It was a little more risky, but I get that one down first try, I feel like I had a really good chance of winning it. Mainly five, five to six.

Q. Is it really hard to be creative nowadays? What was the process like for you being creative, trying to find unique dunks that we haven't seen as much before?

TREY MURPHY III: You have to go to YouTube. You have to go to different Instagram pages and stuff like that of these dunkers that are not, like, basketball players really. They're just professional dunkers.

You have to look at their stuff because if you try to do everything average in a Dunk Contest, you won't get a high score. That was my process.

Q. How did you prepare the first time with Jose [Alvarado]? You invited him to go for it and stuff?

TREY MURPHY III: Actually our PR guy, Matt Ryan, he came up with the idea. He was just, like, you should have Jose do a little GTA [Grand Theft Alvarado] steal and figure out something after that. I was like, wow, that's a pretty good idea. Get the crowd involved. Do something pretty cool with that.