The 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend’s slam dunk contest will feature a field of first-time participants, the opposite of a who’s who of the world’s greatest basketball players.
Let us get to know them.
First, though, we would be remiss if we did not mention Mac McClung, who won the last three dunk contests and opted not to participate this year. He has played a total of 123 minutes in 10 appearances for five different franchises on a series of 10-day and two-way contracts over the past five seasons.
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The 6-foot-2, 185-pound McClung is the world’s most creative and impressive dunker who qualifies as an NBA player. Barely. Which is more than most of us can say. But still. The field of dunk contestants, for the most part since 2017, save for Jaylen Brown in 2024, has not featured an active All-Star. This was once, as far back as the 1980s, a face-off between Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins, two of the sport’s greatest-ever in-game dunkers.
This was an event owned by All-Star guard/forward Vince Carter in 2000.
Now? Now back to what has become our regularly scheduled programming: this year’s dunk contestants, who actually need an introduction.
Carter Bryant, San Antonio Spurs
Height: 6-foot-6
Vertical leap: 39.5 inches
2025-26 dunks: 7
2025-26 minutes: 362
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Bryant is a rookie wing for the Spurs, averaging three points per game.
Carter’s explosive athleticism led him to be the No. 14 overall selection in the 2025 NBA Draft, despite his average of 6.5 points per game as a University of Arizona freshman.
According to a profile of Bryant on Arizona’s alumni website, the 20-year-old’s grandfather is in the USA Deaf Basketball Hall of Fame. His grandmother, who is also deaf, worked at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside, where his father coached girls’ basketball. Bryant’s mother is a sign language interpreter, and Carter Bryant is fluent in American Sign Language.
Jaxson Hayes, Los Angeles Lakers
Height: 7-foot
Vertical leap: 34.5 inches
2025-26 dunks: 72
2025-26 minutes: 745
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Hayes is a reserve center for the Lakers, which on its own makes him a poor selection. Nobody wants to see a 7-footer dunk on a 10-foot rim, even if he is among the NBA’s most frequent dunkers. Only Jericho Sims makes dunks a greater percentage of his field goals.
Sims, as it so happens, is also the last center to appear in the contest, finishing third in 2023. The last and only true center to ever win the event was Dwight Howard in 2008.
In June 2022, Hayes pleaded no contest to charges of false imprisonment and resisting an officer and was sentenced to 450 hours of community service, a year of weekly domestic violence classes and three years of probation. The NBA did not levy an official suspension.
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In November 2024, TMZ published almost six minutes of surveillance video from the alleged dispute. In the footage, Hayes can be seen engaging in a physical confrontation with a woman and spitting at her, as she says, “I’m not going to let you hit me anymore.”
“We are reopening our investigation,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass told ESPN at the time. No punishment has been levied against Hayes from the NBA for the incident, though he was suspended for one game last week “for pushing a Washington Wizards mascot.”
Hayes started his NBA career in New Orleans, where he played four seasons, before signing with the Lakers in 2023.
Keshad Johnson, Miami Heat
Height: 6-foot-6
Vertical leap: 42 inches
2025-26 dunks: 9
2025-26 minutes: 159
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Johnson, another wing, has made 37 appearances across two seasons for the Heat, averaging 3.1 points per game this season. Undrafted out of San Diego State and Arizona, his two-way contract was converted to a standard NBA deal in December of this season.
Johnson declared for the Aztecs out of high school on Nov. 6, 2018, seven years to the day after his brother, Kenny Jr., was paralyzed from the waist down by a series of three gun shots, according to a 2018 profile of the Oakland native in The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“It was just wrong place, wrong time, living in Oakland, rival neighborhoods coming through,” Johnson told the publication upon his declaration for SDSU eight years ago. “He got shot right outside my fifth-grade classroom. If I looked out the window, on the sidewalk I could see the blood. It was still there the next couple days when I went to school.”
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Johnson’s brother wore No. 16. He will wear the same number for the Heat on Saturday.
Jase Richardson, Orlando Magic
Height: 6-foot-1
Vertical leap: 38 inches
2025-26 dunks: 4
2025-26 minutes: 464
Richardson is a rookie guard for the Magic, averaging 5.1 points per game. Known for his shooting ability as a freshman at Michigan State, Richardson was the No. 25 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
He also happens to be the 20-year-old son of Jason Richardson, who won the NBA’s dunk contest in both 2002 and 2003 as a member of the Golden State Warriors. Jason Richardson is one of seven multiple-time winners in the event’s history, joining McClung, Jordan, Wilkins, Nate Robinson, Zach LaVine and Harold Miner. Only McClung and Robinson won three times.
