Mac McClung’s dunk contest threepeat was a triumph of love over fear.
In winning the NBA Dunk Contest a third time, Mac McClung may have done something even bigger: save the entire event… at least according to some headlines from around the internet the next morning.
Deadspin wrote a story trumpeting “How Mac McClung Might Just Save (the) NBA Slam Dunk Contest,” talking up how his participation had gotten stars like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Ja Morant talking about entering the field, as if the lesson from a relatively unknown G League journeyman beating out an NBA field with some of the most exciting dunks ever three times was that we needed the stars who have been too afraid to lose to him to even compete for it to be a fun event.
To that point, The Athletic/New York Times argued the opposite, saying that McClung had just proven “the NBA Slam Dunk Contest doesn’t need stars, just passionate showmen.” The Washington Post called him and his performance “the perfect antidote to NBA all-star malaise.”
All that praise makes it hard to imagine a world where McClung had chosen not to jump over a Kia and save a largely underwhelming 2025 NBA All-Star Saturday night from being mostly remembered for Chris Paul trying to cheat to win the NBA Skills Competition. But according to McClung himself, in an exclusive interview with SB Nation the day before he defended his title, that’s exactly what almost happened.
On Friday, McClung gave our own Katie Heindl a dunk lesson at a fan event, and also gave a pretty profound and honest reason why he almost didn’t even attempt to go for the threepeat — as hard as it is to believe given the dunks he ultimately pulled off, McClung was afraid he’d already used his best stuff, and that he’d fail to win again:
“I wasn’t going to do it three times,” he admits, “but that action would be out of fear and not love.”
“I think everything in life, there’s different actions. I always try to make sure I’m doing something out of love. You can do actions out of fear, out of failure, out of ego, out of jealousy, and I try to act out of love as much as I can,” McClung says, adding that if he had ultimately decided not to be in this year’s contest a little part in the back of his head would always know.
Ironically, those quotes were part of an interview for a story on how the dunk contest doesn’t actually need saving, but simply exists in a different context than it did pre-internet and social media. However, McClung’s performance on Saturday was so awe-inspiring that it seemed to transport all of us back in time to that no-smartphone era through the power of wonder.
I mean, just look at this compilation of his performance from the NBA’s YouTube account. I don’t know about you, but this blogger certainly felt like a kid again watching Mac narrowly pull off his first attempt to dunk over a Kia, especially when seeing in slow-motion how close he came to catching his ankle on the roof and a catastrophic landing:
McClung’s final quotes from Heindl’s story also pop out in retrospect, now that we’ve seen what he had planned:
“The nervousness and the fear to lose is probably bigger than the fear to win, sometimes, for me. And that just makes me prepare more and more,” he says. “Every time I get here I just start preparing, and that puts me in a place where it’s like holy crap,” he says, noting that it’s been people like his friends and parents pointing out that probably no one is working harder than him that really underscores his preparedness.
“One thing I usually do is my hardest dunk first,” McClung notes. “Just because I want to put that pressure on myself, cause I love it.”
It may be hokey — and it isn’t lost on me that we’re chatting on Valentine’s Day — but love as a primary driver is how some of the best things in life get done. Big or small picture.
“I think the energy of what you do, anything in your life, determines the outcome. I try to bring the energy of love into it. Because I love it,” McClung says. “I wanted to walk out on top. For me, this is my best set, and if I make it I’ll feel happy no matter what happens.”
McClung certainly tried his hardest dunk first, and it’s also safe to say that if this is it for him in the event, he’s definitely walking out on top with what might have been his best set. In his post-event interview on TNT, however, he left the door open to another appearance.
“This might be it for me, but we’ll see,” McClung told Allie LaForce while holding his third trophy. “If they want me back bad enough, I’ll think about it.”
None other than Vince Carter, maybe the most iconic contest winner ever, tried to bait McClung into trying to defend his title again by simply saying “nobody has ever won four in a row” to him on the studio set following the night, and I think Vince is speaking for all of us in hoping McClung chooses love of dunking over fear of not having any more ideas to wow us one more time next year in Los Angeles.
