NBA 2ball: The Competition that Killed the Dunk Contest

When it first debuted as part of the NBA's All Star Weekend festivities in 1984, the slam dunk contest was the premiere event. For years millions of fans tuned in to watch basketball legends like Michael Jordan, "Dr J" Julius Erving, and Dominique Wilkins compete to see who was the king of the slam dunk. But by the late 90s, public criticism for the contest had grown, and after a disastrous 1997 outing, the NBA decided to cancel it. However with the 1998 All Star Game at Madison Square Garden approacing, the NBA knew they needed some sort of replacement and so they reached into their bag of tricks and introduced to the world to NBA 2Ball, and event so bad that the dunk contest IMMEDIATELY returned. This it's story Cited Sources The East Oregonian 11-23-66 The Ottawa Journal 08-01-1969 Greeley Daily Tribune 12-29-76 The Crowley Post Signal 06-18-76 The Freeman 12-03-96 The Sacramento Bee 02-23-96 Wokingham Times 03-11-99 Time Colonist 01-20-1997 Miami Herald 01-13-97 Valley News 02-07-98 The Register Guard 07-21-98 North Hills News Record 02-08-98 Tips and Tricks Magazine: November 1996 Sources Used For Research, but not directly cited To The Brink: Stockton Malone And The Utah Jazzs Climb To The Edge Of Glory by Michael Lewis Rise of Vinsanity: The story of the 2000 dunk contest https://www.espn.com/nba/allstar2014/... Crappy Demo No One Wanted May Be Worth a Ton Now [Update https://kotaku.com/crappy-demo-no-one... Fans Vote With Feet: Bring Back The Dunking Contest https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fans-vot... How the National Basketball Association Put the Bounce in Basketball https://www.strategy-business.com/art... NBA Gets Rid of Dunk Contest https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-x.... Nick adds Gas to sports deals https://variety.com/1999/biz/news/nic... Why did the NBA try to kill the Slam Dunk contest in 1998? https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/148... Time Stamps 0:00 (90s Basketball) 01:38 (Slam Dunk Contest Origins) 03:00 (The 80s) 04:12 (The 90s Contests) 04:55 (1997 Slam Dunk Contest) 05:45 (Meet 2Ball) 07:30 (The WNBA Aspect) 09:35 (1998 2Ball) 12:00 (The Death of 2ball) 13:15 (The Replacements) 14:00 (Where Are We Now?) 14:55 (The Video Game) All Clips used in the video can be seen here https://pastebin.com/anyMd0jU