7 Players That NEVER DUNKED In An NBA Game

The dunk is essential to the game of basketball, yet for some players, it is unthinkable to even attempt to do that.
And even tho all guys on this list can probably physically dunk in practice, with no defense, and their knees feel good that day, today we highlight some players who’ve never dunked in an NBA game.
Sit back, cause this is going to be a fun one. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it.
Do you know that back in 2012 Steve Novak was invited to the slam dunk contest despite never dunking in the NBA? Wait what?! A guy known for his shooting, with 0 dunks in his career was invited by the league. Let me explain.
That year was marked by Linsanity coming out of nowhere and shaking up the entire league.
So the marketing team wanted to capitalize on this, and the plan was to have Landry Fields dunk over Jeremy Lin who would be laying on a couch under the basket.
This would have paid homage to the famous story that Lin as the last guy on the bench, before blowing up, used to sleep on Field’s couch. And I like the initial idea.
But then Fields got injured, so the NBA still wanted to push to make this happen, so J.R. Smith got the spot. But shortly after, he also had to withdraw from participating because of injury.
Out of sheer desperation, the league pressed Steve Novak to go, but the sharpshooter himself lobbied to be in a different competition- the three point shootout and there was no chance that he would accept this counter offer.
Novak spent 11 seasons in the NBA and never once dunked in a game. But even crazier is that throughout all those years, he only had 16 layups. 16 layups in 11 years. And all of this stems from the fact that for his career, 78% of his shots came from outside the 3 point line.
This is T.J. Mcconnell throwing it down in practice, sending the entire team into a frenzy.
So despite looking miniature compared to other guys on the court, it’s obvious that he can dunk.
But similarly to Novak, T.J. is in his 7th season and he’s never had an in-game flush.
He jokingly said that with his height at 6’1’’ everyone on the court looks like a rim protector, so he would need a perfect opportunity, which I guess hasn’t presented itself.
At 5’5’’ myself, I agree, no matter who I play against looks like Rudy Gobert to me. But let’s move on to Patty Mills.
I guess he should have saved it, since this is as close as he got to dunking in game. These 5-10 minutes before the tip off.
Towards the end of their careers Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw and Tiago Splitter went up for a dunk so rare that they had bets every season for who was going to have the most dunks at the end. Patty Mills joined this competition and every year he ended up dead last of course with 0.
But with his incredible speed, something tells me that in a blowout game by Brooklyn he could have a fast break opportunity and will decide to finally go up for one.
And just like Mills, J.J. Barea had his only dunk in the layup line before a game. I featured this in an older video and mentioned that beside this, there was 1 close call for Barea and that is this situation right here where he almost dunked but the ball got away and he got called for hanging on the rim.
Speaking of the ball getting away, remember this moment from the All Star Game? On a breakaway Isaiah Thomas goes up off the bounce buuut he couldn’t hold on to it.
And early in his career there was another moment where he almost dunked but got denied both by the rim and the defender.
Out of all the players who’ve never dunked in a game, he has the absolute most unofficial throwdowns. A quick youtube search would confirm that. But he never got lucky to be able to make it when it counts.
Here is an old footage from Steve Nash in high school that serves as the only proof for him as well. Nash was more of a passing guy of course, and as soon as he got to Phoenix, he battled a chronic back injury, so I see how the former 2 time MVP is on this list.
And at the end let me rattle off a few more guys like Ricky Rubio, D.J. Augustin, Jason Kapono who is on this list at 6-8, as well as Trae Young, who is still yet to dunk it in an NBA game.
There isn’t an official list for this, so I know that there are probably more players but I wanted to make this quick video with some of the guys who have an interesting story on this topic.
That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.