Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. hoping to ‘shock’ in Dunk Contest during busy All-Star Weekend

Miami Heat rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. is feeling like most first-year players going through their first NBA All-Star Weekend.

“I’m feeling nervous, I’m feeling excited,” Jaquez said, as he sat at a podium in front of a group of reporters on Friday morning to kick off his All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. “A lot of emotions are coming to mind. Just trying to embrace it all as it comes.”

But Jaquez is busier than most rookies this weekend, taking part in the Rising Stars event on Friday night at Gainbridge Fieldhouse (the Indiana Pacers’ home venue), before participating in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday night at Lucas Oil Stadium (the Indianapolis Colts’ home venue). The Slam Dunk Contest is the final event of All-Star Saturday Night, which begins at 8 p.m. on TNT.

A Heat viewing guide for All-Star Weekend. Adebayo, Jaquez, Swider, Williams all representing

Jaquez, who turns 23 on Sunday, is one of four participants going for the NBA’s Slam Dunk crown this year, along with Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics, Jacob Toppin of the New York Knicks and Mac McClung of the G League’s Osceola Magic. Jaquez and Toppin are the only NBA rookies in that group, as Brown will play in his third NBA All-Star Game on Sunday and McClung is the defending Slam Dunk Contest champion.

The decision to accept an invite to take part in the Slam Dunk Contest was easy for Jaquez.

“They said, ‘Hey, you want to do the Dunk Contest?’” Jaquez re-enacted. “And I said, ‘Hell yeah.’”

But the preparation process leading up to Saturday’s competition has challenged Jaquez. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes to come up with dunks that are creative but also possible to complete without needing multiple attempts.

“They have a dunk coach for me,” Jaquez said to the Miami Herald. “So that was something I wasn’t really aware of or knew was going to happen. That kind of just makes it bigger and you see how much of a process is put into this.”

Jaquez admits that any dunk he tries Saturday will probably be one somebody else has done in a past Slam Dunk Contest, but he’s trying to put his own unique twist on them.

“I think it’s about telling a story and finding different creative ways to do it,” he said. “I think there’s probably not one dunk that hasn’t been done yet. At least, I haven’t thought of one.”

But Jaquez and the three other participants have something at their disposal that no other past NBA Slam Dunk Contest participant has had, and it should help add another dynamic to their dunk attempts.

Every All-Star Saturday Night event this year will be done on a state-of-the-art, full video LED glass court for the first time. This will allow for interactive graphics and other effects during this year’s Dunk Contest.

“It’s going to be exciting,” said Jaquez, who has been among the NBA’s top rookies this season after the Heat selected him with the 18th overall pick in last year’s draft. “I’m not going to give away any secrets right now. But you guys all tune in and make sure you watch.”

The four dunkers will compete in the two-round contest, with five judges scoring each dunk from 40 to 50.

The average of the five judges’ scores will be the individual dunk score. Round 1 will include two dunks for each of the four participants, and the two players with the highest composite score for those two dunks will advance to the final round.

The two players who make it to the final round will get two more dunks, and the participant with the highest final round composite score will be crowned the Slam Dunk champion.

Jaquez is the fourth different Heat player in franchise history to take part in the Slam Dunk Contest, joining Billy Thompson (1990), Harold Miner (1993 and 1995), and Derrick Jones Jr. (2020). The short list of Heat participants who have won the event includes Miner, who claimed the dunk crown in 1993 and 1995, and Jones, who was the dunk champion in 2020.

“I looked at some old dunk contests just for some inspiration and nostalgia just to see what guys were bringing,” Jaquez said, noting another element of his preparation process. “I’m trying to put my own little twist on everything.”

Jaquez (6-6, 230 pounds), who tied for the sixth highest maximum vertical leap at the 2023 NBA Draft Combine at 39 inches, has completed 24 dunks this season. The only player on the Heat’s roster who has more dunks than Jaquez this season is All-Star center Bam Adebayo.

And Jaquez has already won at least one such event in his life, beating Philadelphia 76ers forward KJ Martin and Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Drake London in a 2019 dunk contest while in high school in California. Jaquez threw down a between-the-legs dunk, a 360-alley-oop dunk and jumped over two high school players for another dunk to win that competition.

“I kind of shock myself,” Jaquez said, looking back at that high school experience. “That’s kind of what I’ve done in every dunk contest. I’ve shocked myself with a lot of things that I never really tried. A lot of the things were first time like in the moment type things, where I never practiced them before.”

Jaquez hopes to shock himself and the world on Saturday, as sports books have pegged McClung and Brown as the betting favorites to win this year’s Slam Dunk Contest.

“I always loved dunking. I was obsessed with it,” Jaquez said. “Whenever I was a kid, I would always dream about being able to dunk. Now, here I am in the Dunk Contest. So I think that little kid would be proud of himself.”