Michael Jordan vs. Vince Carter: Who was the better dunker?

Brad Fay, Alvin Williams and Michael Grange discuss The Last Dance, debate who was the better dunker between Michael Jordan and Vince Carter, and more on Basketball Central.

On the latest episode of Basketball Central, Sportsnet NBA analyst Alvin Williams and basketball insider Michael Grange engaged in one of the great barbershop debates of our time: “Who had better dunk competition dunks? MJ or Vince?”

Using three dunks from each player’s glorious dunk contest history, the pair discussed the merits of each.

To start things off, Michael Jordan’s “Rock-The-Baby” cradle one-handed, pump reverse jam in the 1985 dunk contest, was pitted against Vince Carter’s never-seen-before elbow dunk.

Both were incredibly impressive in their own rights, but if there had to be one winner, both Grange and Williams agreed the nod here had to go to Carter.

“It’s insane to say out of my mouth that somebody’s better at something to do at basketball than Michael Jordan, but I’m gonna go with Vince Carter,” Grange said.

The second round saw Jordan’s baseline leaning windmill from 1987 up against Carter’s first jam from 2000, the 360 windmill.

Like the previous round, both Grange and Williams agreed that Carter’s effort was the superior one in this instance, mainly because of the combination of spectacular jams the then-Toronto Raptor did.

“Basically, Vince is doing two incredible dunks at once,” Grange said. “He’s doing a windmill and a 360. Either one of those would be showstoppers at one point, and he put them together.”

In the final set, it’s the dunk that launched the “Air Jordan” brand with the free-throw line slam from 1987 against Carter’s bounce alley-oop between-the-legs masterpiece that helped turn him into a legitimate superstar.

Both Grange and Williams agreed on this one as well, with both taking Jordan in this instance due to the iconic nature of the dunk.

“That was something where the only person I saw do that dunk was Dr. J [Julius Erving],” said Williams. “When Jordan did that no one could ever fathom someone jumping from the foul line.”

Of course, there is a difference between slams in a dunk contest and ones seen in an actual game.

Jordan and Carter were also among the very best at it in the heat of competition as well as in the judged exhibition. But who is actually the best in-game dunker?

We whittled down the choices to Jordan, Carter, Shawn Kemp and Dominique Wilkins and would like to hear from you. If you think another candidate deserves the crown, you can also write in anybody else you want.

You can vote and comment in our Twitter poll below, and you can check out the full episode of Basketball Central in the video player at the top of this post.

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