Terrence Ross Soars: Rookie Wins NBA Dunk Contest, Jumping Over Ball Boy

Terrence Ross blew his first three dunk attempts in the NBA All-Star dunk contest, but it was the way he finished that everyone is talking about.

The rookie from the Toronto Raptors jumped over a ball boy, brought the ball between his legs and finished with a one-handed dunk to win the dunk contest and beat last year’s champion, Jeremy Evans. After the contest, Ross talked about how he jumped over the ball boy — who ESPN noted was Michael Costolo, the son of Twitter CEO Dick Costolo.

“I told him the day before that I was going to jump over him, but I never told him I was going to go through the legs,” Ross said. “He was kind of nervous. When I first grabbed him, he said, ‘You’re not going to hit me, right?’ I said, ‘No, I’m not going to hit you.’ ”

The contest didn’t start so well for Terrence Ross. In the first round he tried to bring the ball between his legs and finish with a one-handed dunk, but failed in his first three attempts. When he finally did it, the crowd went crazy and Ross got a perfect score of 50.

The rest came easy for Ross.

“This is honestly my first really big dunk contest, so I was nervous,” Ross said. “And not making a dunk didn’t make it easy. I had to get myself together.”

For his dunk in the final round, Terrence Ross finished a twisting slam off an alley oop from the side of the backboard. As USA Today noted, Ross called the dunk a tribute to Vince Carter and even donned a Carter jersey for the slam.