With perfect 50 on slam over Shaq, Mac McClung wins second straight dunk title

INDIANAPOLIS -- With the Slam Dunk Contest down to his final dunk, Mac McClung knew spectacular was his only option.

The panel of judges at Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday night -- a group that included three former dunk champions in Dominique Wilkins, Darnell Hillman and Fred Jones -- had been grading harshly but had somewhat surprisingly given Celtics All-NBA wing Jaylen Brown a 49.2 for dunking over fellow All-Star Donovan Mitchell left-handed while wearing a bedazzled white glove. McClung -- the defending champion but also a G Leaguer for most of his professional career -- knew he had to have a 50 to win and knew the judges wouldn't be inclined to give it to him unless he did something too awesome to be denied.

So the 6-2 McClung found the biggest guy in the arena and not only dunked over him but did so with a thunderous reverse. McClung enlisted Shaquille O'Neal -- the TNT analyst and 7-1 Hall-of-Fame center who was listed at 325 pounds in his playing days -- asked him to wear a replica of McClung's Gate City (Va.) High School jersey and gave him a basketball that he held over his head. McClung ran along the right baseline, lifted off from behind Shaq, grabbed the ball off his head, turned and threw down.

It was a dunk for the ages and it earned the 50 McClung needed, delivering him his a second straight championship. In consecutive years, McClung has electrified NBA All-Star Saturday night and given life to an event that is largely considered a fading phenomenon, even as he's struggled to gain a foothold in the NBA.

"I'm trying to sit with it right now and take a second and understand what's going on," McClung said. "I feel like life is so fast sometimes, it's just I'll look back in 20 years when I can't jump anymore and not as quick. But I know I'm a lucky dude."

For McClung, the Slam Dunk Contest has been a year-long endeavor, which stands to reason because it's brought him much more fame and at least some more fortune than many other players in his position. Though he's also focused on his day job as a combo guard with the Osceola Magic, Orlando's G-League affiliate, he works all year with dunk contest coach Chuck Millan on creating a full performance. He referred to his dunks on Saturday as "a set" as if he were a musical artist playing a concert.

"I don't think I've worked so diligently on something so far away for a long time," McClung said. "I can't lie to you and be like, 'Oh, man, I just came up...' It took a long time. I used Chuck a lot, and I used my best friends. They're probably tired of me calling them at night. I was sending them videos every other day: 'What do you think about this one? Is this good enough?' They're like, 'Yeah, it's good enough; I'm going to bed.'"

He found out early in Saturday's contest, however, that "good enough" was actually going to be hard to come by.

McClung's first three dunks were pretty astounding in themselves. On his first, he dunked over a friend of his, grabbing the ball from over top of his head, letting it go to hang in the air for a split-second before grabbing it and throwing down a reverse dunk. On the second he did a two-hand windmill and turned that into a 180 reverse.

Those two dunks were good enough to get him to the finals, but weren't considered perfect. He registered a 48.8 on the first and a 49.4 for the second. In his first dunk in the finals then, he had one friend stand in the lane and another friend sit on top of that friend's shoulders. The friend on top had the ball above his head and McClung leapt over both of them and hit another windmill. It took him two tries to do it, though, and that got him a 48.8.

McClung noticed that others were graded tough as well. Miami Heat forward Jamie Jaquez jumped over Shaq before McClung tried it -- though he had to push off to get over -- and only got a 47.4 for that. Knicks forward Jacob Toppin, brother of Pacers forward and 2020 dunk champion Obi Toppin, had a pair of excellent dunks but didn't get as high as 48 on either of them.

"Seeing some of the guys do dunks, and I was like, oh, wow. I got done with my first dunk, and it was okay, you've got to really bring something," McClung said. "I think they wanted us to make our dunk on the first try, which I completely understand. I knew it was time to lock in the finals."

He did, and he was fortunate that Shaq was willing to not only be dunked on twice in one evening, but to put on a Gate City jersey over his dress shirt. McClung said he had the idea for the dunk months ago and his parents started working on getting a jersey that would fit Shaq about five to six weeks ago.

"Shaq is so cool to put on my high school jersey," McClung said. "It makes me emotional that he did that. When he put it on, he said, 'You better not miss a dunk.' And I was like, 'All right, I won't miss it.'"

He got that one on his first try and it brought the house down. The fans at Lucas Oil Stadium had been showing some dissatisfaction with the harsh judging and seemed to sense some bias toward Brown. The dunk contest used to attract some of the game's best players -- Michael Jordan, Wilkins, and Kobe Bryant are past champions and Julius Erving won it in the ABA -- but Brown is the first All-Star to participate in six years. However, the crowd didn't seem as convinced as the judges that he had outperformed Toppin or Jaquez and they were also less than thrilled when he used the LED court at Lucas Oil Stadium to put a Boston Celtics logo in Indiana.

Brown seemed to enjoy the experience anyway, however, and he used the opportunity to honor Terrence Clarke, a Boston native and former Brewster Academy and Kentucky star who was killed in a car crash in 2021 after he had declared for that year's draft. Brown wore Clarke's Brewster Academy jersey for a dunk and had the LED lights show his picture with his date of birth and death.

"Terrence was like my little bro," Brown said. "Definitely a Boston connection. I wanted to have a purpose in everything that I was doing. I wanted everything to have a message behind it, and I think that's what I did tonight."

McClung his hoping again that the Dunk Contest helps lift him back toward the league. After starring at both Georgetown and Texas Tech in college and earning All-Big 12 honors as a junior, McClung has played just four career NBA games -- one with the Bulls, one with the Lakers and two with the 76ers. He's averaging 23.6 points per game in regular season play with the Osceola Magic this year after averaging 25.2 per game in Showcase Cup play, but he hasn't played an NBA game yet this season.

"There's so many people that came at me before this, like, 'Oh, man, you should be mad,'" McClung said. "You want to be in the NBA. You deserve to be in the NBA. And I do believe I do. But I also think this is my human experience, and I think it's my human experience for a reason because, without this grind and struggle, I probably wouldn't be able to impact like I do and have been lucky enough to do things like this. So this is my story, and I've really embraced it. I'm going to keep fighting. I'm not going to quit no matter any other outcome."

Now he has to decide whether he wants to try this again in 2025 and try to match Nate Robinson's record of three Slam Dunk titles. He's now on a level with Jordan, Wilkins, Harold Miner, Jason Richardson, and Zach LaVine as dunkers who have won it twice.

"I'm not sure yet," McClung said. "I'll think about it."

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Mac McClung wins second straight dunk title with slam over Shaq