what is so different between the dunks now and the past?

He gets the odd dunk, some are vastly underrated though like his dunk on Dwight Howard.

Dunks change over time. That one dude from the knicks in the early 90's, that tall dude with the flat top? He was an insane dunker.

I still think Vince Carter is definitley the best dunker out there (maybe not these days but no question in early 2000)

Everyone does it different ways, some guys are only great dunkers in the open court and are only famous for their dunks. Guys like Tmac are famous for lots of things, like their great play, but i do love that dunk over shawn bradley!

People are getting more an more athletic as time goes on. Dont be suprised if some guy 25 or 30 years from now that is 6'10'' with a 60 inch vertical wins the dunk contest by dunking a few feet back from the free throw line doin a between the legs or something.

Nobody did flashy dunks back in the the early 70's or 60's mainly cuz nobody thought it was cool, but there werent as many athletic guys back then. Nobody back then relied on pure athletics to play the game (like darius miles), they used fundamentals and the mentality was different, though clearly the ammount of athleticism was much less.

And it's harder to do fancy dunks when you have double or even triple teams hounding you.

Perhaps it's just the games I've seen, but he doesn't seem to be double-teamed all that often. Certainly not as much as he should be, if his opponents expect to have any chance at containing him at all.

I guess it's a matter of the change of the game, back when the dunk contest were starting to become boring because probably we have seen all of the creative dunks. But when Vince Carter was doing these crazy dunks in 2000, the dunks were starting to change as well.

I have to agree that some dunks today are being overused, only thing though is that dunkers today are adding a few variants to it.

They couldn't do this back then

http://www.harlemglobetrotters.com/kidscourt/video/wilson.html

I remember watching that on TV when it happened. Thats nots so amazing considering his height. If two guys at 5'7" can win the dunk contest on a 10 foot rim...a guy who's 6'7" should be able to do a one handed dunk on a 12 foot rim. If he did a 360 or between the legs then i'd be quite impressed.

yeah, it's all about time. You gotta respect the Rock the Cradle, the 'Niques, and Shemp's. But also VC's. You can't say which is better, they both were thought to be untoppable in their time. In 5 years we'll see something crazy new and say "man those dunks from VC weren't as amazing as I thought."

and the Dunk comp makes regular in games dunks look shitty now too-except lebrons statue of Liberty in game dunks, they're just as good

And it's harder to do fancy dunks when you have double or even triple teams hounding you.

Perhaps it's just the games I've seen, but he doesn't seem to be double-teamed all that often. Certainly not as much as he should be, if his opponents expect to have any chance at containing him at all.

I'm guessing most teams just let him score and defend his teammates. Like what the Suns did.

It certainly seems that way but as I said, that could be just the games I've seen.