YouTube Gold: The Greatest NBA Dunk Contest Ever?

Could be - 1985 was off the charts great.

The ABA was doomed because it never generated enough money to make for a stable league, but dollar for dollar, it was far more entertaining than the older, more staid NBA.

The circus league (as the NBA saw it) not only introduced the three point shot and the red-white-and-blue ball (something that would be great for the NBA to pick back up, incidentally), but it also had the first dunk contest in 1976, which Julius “Dr. J” Erving won with a spectacular running dunk from the foul line.

A lot of the other dunks were pretty pedestrian though and wouldn't merit a second look today, much less nine years after the merger.

Why that seemingly random bundle of years? Because that puts us in 1985, and the dunk contest in 1985 was legendary.

The contestants that year featured Erving, still at it, Larry Nance, Dominique Wilkins, Orlando Woolridge, Clyde “the Glyde” Drexler, Darrell Griffith, Terence Stansbury and some guy from UNC who did okay once he got out of Chapel Hill.

This one may have been the best ever because all of these guys were great dunkers. The least accomplished player was probably Stansbury who only played in the league for three seasons, yet finished third in the dunk contest three times. His 360 here is seriously impressive.

The contest was ultimately won by Wilkins, aka the Human Highlight Reel. Watch him here and you’ll soon see why.