Shaedon Sharpe throws it down for the Blazers against the Rockets in Friday's Emirates NBA Cup 2025 action.
Season Dunk Score Leaders: See which dunk rank the highest this season on the Dunk Score Leaderboard
Daily Dunk Score Leaders: Each night, the top five Dunk Scores will be updated in real time on NBA.com/Stats. View the top right column on desktop and below Player News on mobile devices.
Dunk Score is back for Year 2. Before we dive into some of this season’s top-rated dunks, here’s a quick refresher on how it works and what it measures:
- Dunk Score is courtesy of the NBA’s player tracking data and innovative data science
- Throughout each NBA game, NBA official tracking data produces a location (x,y,z) for 29 different points on all 10 players’ bodies 60 times per second. That results in a stream of the location of every player’s head, shoulders, hands, hips, feet and more throughout the game. Add that to the location (x,y,z) of the ball and the full context of every play is able to be analyzed.
- From there, the NBA Stats team is able to leverage the tracking data to calculate the meaningful features needed to make Dunk Score possible. After that, there’s an additional layer of data science in the form of an NBA-specific mathematical model that weighs the value of each feature to ultimately output the final Dunk Score. Essentially, it turns the unparalleled athleticism we all witness with NBA dunks and debate about in our favorite forums into empirical numbers.
The final Dunk Score is broken down into four subscores: Jump, Power, Style and Defensive Contest. Each characteristic we calculate falls into one of these categories:
- Jump: The jump is the key to any dunk. This group of features includes all the measurements that quantify the athleticism of the jump itself. The key metrics include the distance the player is from the hoop when he leaves the ground and the maximum vertical jump height during the course of the jump.
- Power: When it comes to the Dunk Score, the more power, the better. Power is demonstrated by the speed of the ball as it goes through the hoop as well as some additional angular velocities of the player’s arms through the course of the dunk.
- Style: The more power the better, but not if it comes at the expense of style. The best dunks entertain. The Dunk Score would be incomplete if we didn’t credit for the alley-oops, 360’s and windmills. It’s a bit more subjective than other measurements, but the evaluation is consistent from dunk to dunk and vitally important to capturing the quality of a dunk.
- Defensive Contest: All things being equal, the same dunk done on a 1-on-0 breakaway isn’t as impressive as doing it against a defender trying to get the block. There’s a reason why they put these dunks on posters. The calculations in the Defense subscore look at whether a defender is between the dunker and the hoop and how high above the rim the defender’s hands get to block the shot.
Through the first month of the season, we’ve already seen some noteworthy Dunk Scores. Here’s a closer look at three of the top slams and why they sit at the top of the leaderboard:
Shaedon Sharpe: 120.8
Shaedon Sharpe's poster charts the highest Dunk Score of the year at 120.8
Sharpe is known for his athleticism, having charted four of the five highest verticals recorded last season. The 6-foot-5 guard made his presence felt early this season, delivering not only the highest Dunk Score of the season so far, but the highest since tracking began at the start of the 2024-25 season. Last season, Quentin Grimes recorded the highest Dunk Score with a 118.2.
On Nov. 14 vs. the Rockets, Sharpe elevated with a 37.6-inch vertical and reached a max ball height of 11 feet, 1 inch on this slam, contributing to a Jump subscore of 89.3. One impressive subscore alone, however, doesn’t guarantee an elite Dunk Score. What pushed Sharpe’s dunk to the top of the leaderboard was the combination of all four subscores working together. He is one of two players this season to have a dunk register three subscores in the 80s.
Subscore Breakdown:
Jump (89.3)
Power (91.2)
Style (73.0)
Defensive Contest (84.9)
Onyeka Okongwu: 117.8
Atlanta's Onyeka Okongwu rises for huge poster slam vs. Thunder.
As noted above, Sharpe is one of only two players this season to register a dunk with three subscores in the 80s. The other is Okongwu. On this slam, Okongwu posted a 96.8 Power subscore, driven by a ball speed of 28.8 mph as it went through the rim. He also recorded an 87.3 Defensive Contest subscore, which reflects how close the defender was and how directly in front of him they remained from takeoff through the finish.
Subscore Breakdown:
Jump (82.6)
Power (96.8)
Style (69.1)
Defensive Contest (87.3)
Zion Williamson: 117.5
Check out the rim-rocking jam that earned Zion Williamson a high dunk score!
Williamson showed his explosiveness early this season with a massive putback slam that earned a 117.5 Dunk Score. Powered by a 33.6-inch vertical, a 5-foot, 6-inch takeoff distance, .533 seconds of hang time and a max ball height of 10-foot-7, he posted a 91.9 Jump subscore. The dunk also received a bump in Style for being a putback and showcased plenty of Power, with the ball ripping through the rim at 28.0 MPH.
Subscore Breakdown:
Jump (91.9)
Power (55.4)
Style (68.6)
Defensive Contest (75.9)
