Angel Moreno

For those of us who watched ex-Bulldog Paul George in Saturday’s Slam Dunk Contest, one thing was for certain: his high-flying slams were more than enough to earn him first place.

But it was Utah Jazz’s Jeremy Evans who won, beating out George, the Houston Rockets’ Chase Budinger and the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Derrick Williams.

Why?

Was it the fact that he jumped over a 5-foot-4 Kevin Hart, who was dressed up as a mailman in a tribute to Jazz legend Karl Malone?

Basketball fans across the country think so, as this year’s contest marked the first time the NBA made the contest solely based on fan voting. Fans voted for who they thought should win via Twitter, text message or on the league’s website.

But the truth is Evans wasn’t the best dunker on the floor that night. George was.

George’s dunks were creative, spontaneuous and reminicsent of two years ago when he graced us with his talent in the Save Mart Center.

For his first dunk, George jumped over two teammates, 7-foot-2 Roy Hibbert and 6-6 Dahntay Jones. Sure, he may have used his hand to push off a bit, but to open the contest jumping over a seven-footer is absurd, but deserving of the title in itself.

For the second, he put out the lights, literally, sporting a glow-in-the-dark uniform in his Tron-inspired 360 windmill.

And for his third, he honored Pacers’ general manager Larry Bird by slapping a sticker of the legend’s face on the backboard while dunking.

How did Evans match?

He bounced himself a pass for a reverse dunk. It would’ve been impressive, had the pass not already been in the basket.

He jumped over a sitting person who lobbed up two basketballs, which he dunked both.

And he jumped over a 5-foot-4 mailman imposter.

Impressive?

Sure.

Was it enough?

I don’t think so.

And neither did Stephen Curry (@StephenCurry30)who tweeted:

“Even though the 2 ball dunk was nice prolly the best of the night, u can’t have the WORST dunk ever and win.”

Orlando Magic’s Jason Richardson agreed with Curry, retweeting his tweet above and tweeting for himself:

“I think Paul George or Chase Budinger should of won…. Guess all 3 million votes came from Utah lol.”

I can partially agree, Budinger sucked.