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Anthony Olivieri
Mac McClung, the three-time defending NBA dunk contest champion, will not participate in the event next month, his father, Marcus McClung, told ESPN on Monday.
«Not going to be 4 in a row,» Marcus McClung wrote in a text message. «Not one reason that I could say that was the main reason. In my opinion it is more like a bunch of reasons that just pointed to him not doing it.»
Mac McClung told a commercial products interviewer over the weekend that he would not compete this year and added in an X post that he will release «the dunks we came up with after the contest.»
As recently as last month, McClung — the only player to ever win the event three times in a row — told ESPN he was «not sure» if he would compete in the 2026 contest. In that interview and others with ESPN, he questioned whether he had adequate new moves to dominate the contest and admitted that his profile as a dunker, rather than all-around basketball player, had concerned him in the past.
Earlier this season, McClung spent a week with the Indiana Pacers after earning his first-ever standard NBA contract on Oct. 28. He appeared in three games and averaged 6.3 points, including 12 points in 19 minutes in the Pacers’ loss 128-108 to the Atlanta Hawks on Oct. 31. He was waived on Nov. 6.
McClung has appeared in nine career NBA games with five teams.
McClung, who went undrafted in 2021, currently is a member of the Windy City Bulls, Chicago‘s G League affiliate. He’s averaging 23.5 points in 11 games with Windy City during the G League regular season. McClung has won a G League championship with the Delaware Blue Coats, the Philadelphia 76ers‘ affiliate, and a G League MVP with the Osceola Magic.
To win his dunk contests, he beat the New Orleans Pelicans‘ Trey Murphy III in the 2023 final, the Boston Celtics‘ Jaylen Brown in 2024 and the San Antonio Spurs‘ Stephon Castle in 2025, memorably leaping over a car en route to the victory.
