Mohamed Diawara, the No. 51 pick in the 2025 NBA draft, has started six games for the New York Knicks this season. That is one fewer start than the entire Slam Dunk Contest field combined.
If you’re looking for reasons why All-Star Weekend has devolved into a vacuous dud, therein lines your answer: Once the hallmark event of All-Star Saturday Night, the Slam Dunk Contest no longer draws household names, let alone entrenched stars, as participants. (Hat tip to Dan Feldman of Dunc’d On Prime for the inspiration here, by the way.)
Jaxson Hayes, Keshad Johnson, Jase Richardson, and Carter Bryant populate this year’s list of jammin' and yammin' artists. Hayes is the only one who’s a prominent rotation player for his team—and also the only one to have started a single game. (To be fair, Richardson plays steady-ish minutes for the Orlando Magic.)
Absurder still, until recently, Diawara had started more games for the Knicks than the entire dunk-contest field. Three of Hayes’ seven starts came after his participation was announced.
This is a great look for the Knicks…
There are two primary takeaways from this admittedly cherry-picked data point. For the Knicks, first and foremost, this is a testament to snagging snagging someone at the end of the draft who’s worth developing, and then actually developing him.
Distributing minutes to rookies when you have championship aspirations, and aren’t particularly prone to blowout victories, can be difficult. The Knicks under Mike Brown are finding ways to juggle dueling agendas.
Injuries have helped pave the way, but you have to credit Brown’s flexibility. He has no qualms about switching up his rotations on a whim, and experimenting with different looks.
Above all, Diawara deserves a ton of praise. The flashes he has shown as both a positionally malleable and turns-off-the-water defender are tantalizing, and he’s taking and making enough wide-open threes to cement his case for minutes.
Many view Jeremy Sochan’s arrival as a harbinger of miniature doom for Diawara’s rotation spot. Don’t be surprised if he sticks anyway.
…and a terrible look for the NBA
At a more macro level, though, Diawara’s modest role with the Knicks exposes the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest for what it is: absent any shred of widespread interest.
This is not a jab at the participants themselves, or their aerial abilities. But the contest has veered too far from even the literal interpretation of “rising stars.” Mac McClung is the three-time reigning champion, not currently in the NBA, and still turned down an offer to defend his crown. That says it all.
As the league tries to incite interest in the All-Star Game itself, it must also explore ways to entice bigger names to the dunking jamboree. Jaylen Brown participating in 2024 was dope, but shouldn’t have been such an anomalous spectacle.
I won’t pretend to have the answers. Personally, I understand the hesitance from established stars—and even marquee youngsters. The pressure to innovate and excel is steep. Failed attempts will be meme’d. Players will be trolled if they lose.
Victories will not be as tattooed to memory by comparison. People will shrug, particularly if the win doesn’t come against a well-known crop of opponents. The risk-reward calculus doesn’t line up for virtually anyone.
Understanding the problem doesn’t make it any less of an issue. Diawara’s arc with the Knicks is super cool. There is no world, though, in which the profile of a fresh-out-of-the-draft No. 51 pick and fringe-rotation player should rival—nevermind eclipse—those of the names participating in what's supposed to be the red-carpet event of NBA All-Star Weekend.