Morant says he'll only participate in dunk contest for $1M

Fans shouldn't get their hopes up about seeing Ja Morant in the NBA Slam Dunk contest.

The only way the Memphis Grizzlies guard would agree to participate is if he's paid $1 million.

"They give me a mill, and I get in the dunk contest," he told Taylor Rooks of Bleacher Report. "So until then, I'll be watching and just sending my tweets out for the judging and stuff.

"But I feel like now, you just see so many crazy dunks in games that when the dunk contest comes, you don't appreciate the dunk as much. And not too many people can do the dunks guys are doing in that dunk contest, so I feel like if you look at it that way, there'd be a lot more 50s."

One of Morant's issues with the dunk contest is how players are judged.

"You just gotta look at it as, 'How many people can actually do this dunk?' or like, 'How difficult was it to do this dunk?' Because even though you have somebody make the dunk look easy, it's not," he said. "There's times where I'd be in the gym trying some of the dunks and be like, bro, it took me like 10 times just to and they go make it on their first time.

"So I feel like (the judges) look at it as, 'Nah, that was too easy for him' but not looking at the actual dunk. So they'll be like, 'Alright this is an eight' when it should be a 10."

There was plenty of controversy surrounding the judging during the 2020 Slam Dunk contest, particularly Dwyane Wade's decision to give then-Orlando Magic forward Aaron Gordon a nine on his final attempt. Gordon later said he would never participate again.