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Andrew LopezESPN
Portland‘s Anfernee Simons was all smiles as he became the first Trail Blazers player to win the NBA dunk contest, which took place during halftime of Sunday night’s All-Star Game.
Simons bested rookies Obi Toppin of the New York Knicks and Cassius Stanley of the Indiana Pacers to bring home the trophy, which he called “a dream come true.”
Simons won the contest over Toppin in the final round via a new rule called the “Judge’s choice.” Simons and Toppin had one dunk each in the round, and instead of a score, the five judges selected a name, with Simons receiving three votes to Toppin’s two.
“Having a chance to come in and be a part of it and win it, it’s surreal,” Simons said.
For his final dunk, Simons started in the corner and lobbed the ball up. As he caught it, he jumped as high as he could and blew a kiss to the rim while being as level with the rim as possible. While he missed actually kissing the rim, he did show off his vertical.
Simons said his goal for the last dunk was to kiss the rim, but he also wanted to make sure he didn’t hit his head.
“In practice, I never actually kissed the rim, but I was like, ‘I gotta commit to it,'” Simons said. “I tried to put a mouthpiece in last-minute, but it didn’t fit in my mouth. I just scratched and I’m just going to emphasize the smooch face so people know I’m next to the rim and trying to kiss it.”
Simons said he was going over crazy ideas and actively joking about the kiss-the-rim dunk when discussing his plans for the contest, before settling on making an attempt at it.
“I was like all right, ‘Let’s actually do it this time.’ That was something nobody had ever done,” Simons said. “Just very unique and very creative to do. I think a few people can actually do. I think that was going to show the judges a lot.”
On his first dunk, Simons had a mini hoop placed on the goal with a basketball on top of it. He ran from the side and grabbed the ball off the hoop — probably two feet above the rim — and dunked it. His second slam was a tribute to Tracy McGrady. He donned a T-Mac jersey and went with a 360 dunk off the bounce.
Introduced as “Slam Dunk champion Anfernee Simons” during his post-dunk contest media availability, Simons just smiled and said, “Nice intro.”
