I jumped up as high as I could, stretched my arm out as far as I could, and by mere inches I got that tennis ball up and over the rim.

That’s the closest I’ve ever come to doing the coolest thing one can do on a basketball court: dunking. I was 15 years old and on my JV basketball team in high school.  While many attempts of dunking an actual basketball were made (I once got a women’s ball in, but it couldn’t have been called a dunk), I never hit that point. Now, 12 years later, my chances of dunking on a 10-foot hoop are pretty much shot.

Monday night, Blake Griffin showed the world once again that he’s some sort of inhuman basketball monster. His dunk over Kendrick Perkins sent the basketball world (and me) into a frenzy. That got me to thinking something that has been debated many times over the years: What are the 10 best dunks of all time?

Judging the best dunk is a laborious task. I’ve come up with a few of my criteria, but others may disagree, and they aren’t necessarily wrong in their disagreement. That’s the nature of the beast when it comes to dunks, and top 10 lists for that matter. Also, let it be known that a dunk doesn’t have to fit every single piece of criteria. Sometimes a dunk is just so hellacious that you can only meet one of those checkmarks and it still is a top ten dunk. My criteria for best dunk are:

• Has to be in a game: The dunk contest is a ton of fun, but it’s something that you can plan, practice, and there’s no one trying to stop you.  Part of the excitement of a great dunk is that you have another man in front of you trying to stop your progress into YouTube immortality. Which leads me into:
• It has to be over someone: Like I said, having a defender (bonus points on the dunk if it’s a very well-known defender or a superstar) trying to stop you and still finishing a monster dunk just makes it that much better.
• Anticipation: There’s gotta be a feeling that something big is coming. That you can see a defender in position and you know something is going to happen.  What, you don’t know, but you know it’s going to be awesome. (Put back dunks are very hard for me to include on this list because of that fact.)
• A WOW factor: Any top 10 dunk has to make me feel like I just witnessed history. It has to make me want to call every friend and scream, “did you just SEE THAT!?”
• Celebration: This is a very loose requirement, but you’ve gotta do something. Even if it’s just standing there with your chest puffed out and looking cool, that’s fine. But there is no acceptable way that you can send 20 thousand people into hysteria without at least acknowledging it.
• Size differential: A small guy over a big guy makes for a better dunk. It’s a lot better than a big guy over a little guy.
• It has to count: Sorry Kobe over Nash…they called it a charge on you, and therefore doesn’t count. Suck it, Kobe.

First, I’ll give you my Honorable Mentions (complete with YouTube clips)

• Backboard Breakers: it doesn’t meet the criteria as I outlined, but they’re still cool: Shaq breaks backboard and Darryl Dawkins shatters the glass:
• The rest: Baron Davis over Andrei Kirilenko, LeBron James over Tim Duncan, Shaq over Chris Dudley, and Blake Griffin over Timofey Mozgov (that’s not the last we’ll see of Griffin.)

So here we go with the top 10:

10. Amare Stoudemire over Anthony Tolliver

Amare has quite a few fierce dunks in his career, but this one is widely regarded as his best ever. This dunk not only had the power, wow and anticipation, it tied the game (after the free throw), and completely emasculated Anthony Tolliver. Poor Tolliver.

9. Dominique Wilkins over Larry Bird

(You can watch the entire video, or go to the 1:09 mark to see the dunk I’m referencing.) This covers the “dunking over a superstar” criteria, and no best dunks list would be complete without the Human Highlight Reel. Dominique was one of the best dunkers of all time and while he had a lot of highlight dunks, this one is one of his more powerful ones. Bonus points go to this one, because the next highlight is from the same game where he dunked over Robert Parish on the Celtics. I think the first highlight shown is better, but I would respect you if you picked the next one.

8. Michael Jordan over Patrick Ewing

People probably think it’s blasphemy that I’m not putting this one higher, and while it was in the playoffs and a powerful dunk, I just can’t put it higher.  The move prior to the dunk was better than the dunk itself. Maybe I just am not a big Jordan fan, but this one doesn’t do much for me. It wasn’t even the best dunk by a Bull over Ewing. That one belongs to:

7. Scottie Pippen over Patrick Ewing

This one has some spice to it! The Bulls and Knicks hated one another in the mid-90s and even though Jordan was retired for the first time in this game, it was still hotly contested. Major bonus points go to Pippen for standing over him afterward in a “yeah, I did that” way. For being one of the best shot blockers of all time, Ewing got dunked on a lot.

6. Kevin Johnson over Hakeem Olajuwon

This is the one where the size differential comes into play. KJ is 6’1” on a good day. Olajuwon is 7’1” all the time. KJ, in that playoff game, made Hakeem look like a midget as he powered his way to the basket. It came late in the game, and got Hakeem his fifth foul. To my knowledge, it’s the only time Hakeem was dunked on that badly in his hall of fame career. So…go Suns! Bonus video for you: KJ over future teammate Hot Rod Williams.

5. Tom Chambers over Mark Jackson

Anticipation comes into play with this one, along with a wow factor. Upon first view, it doesn’t look that amazing. On a closer look, you see that Chambers jumps off two feet, collides with Mark Jackson, and then rises up even more so that his chest is almost level with the rim. Chambers had to throw it down through the hoop from the chest, instead of above the head. Wow.

4. Shawn Kemp over Alton Lister

Power, power and more power, along with one of the best dunk celebrations of all time. Shawn Kemp was vicious back in the day and he showed it with this dunk. He carries the ball like a fullback on his way to the rim, and then spreads his legs out to make it look even more powerful. His pointing at Lister afterward was just the icing on the cake.

3. Blake Griffin over Kendrick Perkins:

The aforementioned dunk that started this whole thought process. It’s difficult to fully digest this one, as it just happened, and we don’t have a historical context. However, it was so powerful and so amazing that I think I watched it about 100 times the next day. Perkins is one of the strongest defenders in the league and tried his best to foul Blake hard. Blake just kept going up and kind of hung in the air when he threw it down. This dunk was so disgustingly awesome and talked about on social media so much that it made Kendrick delete his twitter account.

2. Vince Carter over Fredrick Weiss:

I really didn’t like putting Vince on this list, but this dunk was just too amazing to not put on here. It happened in the Olympics, so the star power isn’t here, but the wow factor is off the charts. Fredrick Weiss, the dunkee, is 7’2” tall, and Carter jumps over him like Vince was on a trampoline. This wasn’t a jump and the guy ducks out of the way jumping over either. Vince flat out cleared him, and then celebrated by nearly taking his teammate’s head off. Great dunk all around.

1. Dr. J over Michael Cooper:

The anticipation of this dunk is scintillating. Dr. J gets the ball around half court, takes one dribble and never puts the ball in his left hand. Think about how difficult that is for a moment. He’s able to pick up a rolling ball, dribble it and then cup it in his hand like a baby in a cradle, and then throw it down over the best defender in the league at the time. History plays a huge factor here, as Dr. J was one of the innovators of the slam dunk, and is known as one of the best dunkers of all time. His power and grace were unmatched at the time, and to this day are still a wonder.

One final video, and I call this the greatest “Anti-Dunk” ever. (I’m being a huge Suns homer, but I don’t care) Grant Hill sends Jerryd Bayless back to school with this block:

That’s the list, and while everyone might have a different list, we all love and appreciate a good dunk. I’ll never be able to do what any of these guys have done, I can pretend I’m KJ when I dunk on my nerf hoop at home.