What The FUCK Happened To The Slam Dunk Contest?

I am currently in the middle of a Lost marathon.  I'm really late to the party and have been watching episode after episode in order to get caught up to the current season.  Yesterday (Saturday, Feb 13) I found myself finishing up season 2.  Towards the tail end I realized it was time for the slam dunk contest so I was faced with an interesting dilemma: continue watching Lost and miss out on some entertaining dunks or turn the channel and lose ground on my catch up marathon.  Eventually, I caved and switched to TNT and you will not believe the level of disappointment I had when I saw the first round.  I saw a collection of normal ass, "in game" dunks and was immediately sick to my stomach.  The past three years have been full of creativity: Dwight Howard's Superman, Nate jumping over people, Josh Smiths sticker, Blowing out the cupcake, etc. There was NONE of that this year.  What is going on?  The only explanation I can think of is that this was planned by all involved to try and get LeBron, Kobe, Vince, etc interested to do next years.  Because that's about the only thing that can save the contest.  It was so awful this year that no one at all will care next year.  Terrible.