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Toronto Raptors rookie Terrence Ross quickly established himself as one of the NBA's best in-game dunkers during the first half of the NBA season. Saturday night he established himself as the league's premier dunker as he dethroned Utah Jazz forward Jeremy Evans to win the 2013 Sprite Slam Dunk contest.
The contest started off with a bang, as the Eastern team of Gerald Green, Ross and James White picked up 145 points out of a possible 150. Green took a pass off the backboard from teammate Lance Stephenson and did a reverse dunk a la Harold Miner. Ross followed that up with a 360/behind-the-back dunk. White finished the round for the East by jumping from just inside the free-throw line and finishing with a two-handed tomahawk dunk. Ross was the only East dunker to complete two dunks in the team round, which put him in the finals.
The Western team of Eric Bledsoe, Kenneth Faried and Evans' first round of dunks were lackluster, but they followed up with a very impressive second round of dunks, putting together a combined score of 143 out of 150. Evans' edged out Bledsoe and Faried by just one point to advance to the championship round.
In the finals, Ross and Evans put on a show. Evans started off by dunking over a painting of himself dunking over a painting. Evans revealed after the contest that he did the painting himself and finished it Friday night. Ross followed that up by donning a Vince Carter Raptors jersey, paying homage to Carter's famous 2000 dunk contest performance. Ross then took a pass off the backboard and did a 360 windmill. For his second dunk, Evans took a pass from a seated Dahntay Jones, hung in the air and threw it down with one hand. Ross set-up a ball boy just outside the paint, jumped over him and threw the ball down after going between his legs.
As has been the case with recent dunk contests, fan chose the dunk contest champion. In the end, Ross garnered 58 percent of the fan vote to be the Raptors' first dunk contest champion since Carter's performance that resurrected the competition.