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" They called him Dr. Dunk for a reason. Darnell Hillman wasn&amp;#039;t just tall, standing at six-foot-nine. He had a 54-inch vertical leap. And when barreling toward the basket, Hillman could will his 215-pound frame to almost soar, almost fly. &amp;quot;I could kick the backboard with my foot and land on my feet,&amp;quot; he recalled recently. &amp;quot;For me, it just depended on how much adrenaline was running.&amp;quot; The night of the first NBA dunk contest in 1977, Hillman, then with the New Jersey Nets, had plenty of adrenaline in his system. Fifteen thousand dollars in prize money was at stake, so, with his final dunk, Hillman decided to pull out something special. &amp;quot;I called it Rock the Cradle,&amp;quot; he told me. &amp;quot;And yes, I do remember it.&amp;quot; He recalled it exactly, in fact: how he hustled down the key, afro flying, and took the ball from right to left to right. &amp;quot;Now by this time,&amp;quot; he said, &amp;quot;you should be flying past the rim.&amp;quot; But not before turning your back to the hoop and throwing the ball down behind your head. The dunk, flawlessly executed, electrified the fans, and the judges, who crowned him the NBA&amp;#039;s first-ever dunk contest champion. &amp;quot;I had a little work to do,&amp;quot; Hillman told the courtside reporter after the win. &amp;quot;And I went out and did it.&amp;quot; Hillman&amp;#039;s heroics\u2014like Julius Erving&amp;#039;s, one year earlier in the ABA&amp;#039;s inaugural dunk contest\u2014would help make dunking a cultural sensation. And by the mid-1980s, NBA dunk contests featured the brightest stars in the game, stars recognizable by just one name: Erving, Jordan, Wilkins, and Drexler. That changed, however, in the 1990s. And soon, the contest became so unpopular that the NBA canceled it altogether. Even the players were weary of the idea. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re seeing a lot of the same things,&amp;quot; Hall of Famer and former dunk contest participant George Gervin said in 1997. &amp;quot;You get tired of looking at it.&amp;quot; Those sentiments persist today, fourteen years after the league reversed course and revived the contest. There&amp;#039;s a feeling that we&amp;#039;ve seen it all, that the dunk contests of old were better. But on the eve of NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans this weekend, the dunk contest remains not just relevant, not just meaningful, but perhaps the most quintessential, most American, exhibition of total athletic dominance we have.    Blake Griffin, in the 2011 Dunk ContestMouse over to see the dunk  Because to dunk is to be someone\u2014an elite athlete, a force to be reckoned with, a man in full, grimacing and dangerous. And in the sports world, such things matter. Ross, who&amp;#039;s twenty-seven and about six-three, can remember exactly what dunking meant to him when he was in high school in rural Texas. &amp;quot;I practiced for hours\u2014hours\u2014days and days, and summers, trying to get myself to dunk,&amp;quot; he told me. And when he finally did it, he felt somehow bigger. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s such a part of your identity,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;You just want to show everybody that you can do it. And when you finally do, it&amp;#039;s like, &amp;#039;Man, I&amp;#039;m here. I&amp;#039;ve arrived.&amp;#039;&amp;quot; The six contestants in Saturday night&amp;#039;s dunk contest (totally reformatted this year) may not be household names, but they know that feeling. John Wall, the Wizards point guard who&amp;#039;s competing this weekend, admits to being a little nervous. &amp;quot;The only thing you don&amp;#039;t want to do, is miss a dunk,&amp;quot; he told me. And, of course, the chances of that are now higher because creativity\u2014doing something no one else has done before\u2014is more important than ever. Still, Wall can&amp;#039;t wait to get to New Orleans. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a dream come true for me,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;All these years, I&amp;#039;ve been waiting to be invited to dunk.&amp;quot; Jaded fans may look at that as a diminished honor, a door prize. And former players are often among the cynics, believing the contests of yore, with bigger-name stars, were better. But the dogged romanticizing of the past is just that: romance, fantasy. Sure, Dr. J jumped from nearly the foul line\u2014fifteen feet away\u2014to dunk the ball at the original ABA contest in 1976. But Dwight Howard, wearing a Superman cape, jumped higher when he won the contest six years ago. And, sure, Spud Webb, won the contest in 1986, despite his tight shorts and his five-seven frame. But Nate Robinson won it twice in the past decade, despite his long shorts and his five-nine frame. And who knows what will happen this weekend in New Orleans, what new heights will be attained, or new tricks unveiled? &amp;quot;Everybody&amp;#039;s going to have to wait and see,&amp;quot; said Terrence Ross, a second-year forward with the Raptors, who will be among the players taking take floor on Saturday night.   Terrence Ross, in the 2013 Dunk ContestMouse over to see the dunk  Ross is twenty-three. He wasn&amp;#039;t even born when Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins were squaring off in the now wistfully remembered dunk contests of the 1980s. He watched them only last year, on YouTube, to prepare for the 2013 dunk contest, which he then won. &amp;quot;It was a nice little moment,&amp;quot; he said, &amp;quot;to show what I can do.&amp;quot; But Ross is just being modest. Since his victory last year, fans around the league recognize him more. Visitors to his mother&amp;#039;s home in Portland, Ore., clamber to see the dunk contest trophy, which she keeps in a shrine to her son in the living room. And Ross has earned one more thing\u2014that ultimate symbol of power in today&amp;#039;s world. In the afterglow of his dunking greatness last year, he added about two thousand Twitter followers. &amp;quot;Everybody knew me,&amp;quot; he said, &amp;quot;as the dunk champ.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/news/a27333/dunk-contest-matters/>