TORONTO -- Zach LaVine walked away from All-Star Saturday Night with the Slam Dunk Contest trophy, going Back to Back just as he promised when he walked out to the Drake diss track before his opening throwdown of the night. He gets to wear the title of champion and he earned the hell out of it.

But that doesn’t mean Aaron Gordon didn’t come away from the night just as much of a winner. It’s a damn shame that the performance he put on gets “second place” attached to it in the record books. Gordon showed up for the event in a tuxedo, coming onto the court to the tune of Jidenna’s Classic Man, and then he and LaVine put on a show that will go down as an all-time classic contest. Even Dominique Wilkins had to acknowledge what he had just seen go down.

LaVine collected 299 of a possible 300 points on the evening, floating through the air and serving up a rather ridiculous array of slams, the degree of difficulty being upped with each successive round. But Gordon pulled a few rabbits out of his magic hat, as well, unveiling a series of dunks that nobody had ever seen before.

He opened with a between-the-legs reverse:

Then he jumped over the Magic mascot (who was on a hoverboard) plucked the ball off the top of the mascot’s head and put it between his legs and before throwing it through the rim:

Those two dunks got him to the finals, where he broke out two more absolutely bonkers dunks with the help of Stuff (the mascot):

Just look at this. UNDER BOTH OF HIS LEGS:

Every year you hear that there are no more original dunks in the dunk contest anymore. Gordon was proud of the fact that each of his initial four was something that hadn’t been done, particularly the last of the four that had everybody in the Air Canada Centre jumping all the way through the roof once the video board replay showed them what really happened.

“I knew I wanted to do that because it was just different. I knew it hadn’t been done in the NBA dunk contest,” Gordon said. “I knew all four of my initial dunks hadn’t been done in the NBA dunk contest before.”

In any normal dunk contest, the under-the-legs dunk would be the one where everyone and their mother screams, “IT’S OVER!!!” and we all go home for the night. Of course, because Gordon had the misfortune of going up against LaVine (who is now up there with the great dunk contest dunkers in the history of the NBA, whether we want to admit it yet or not), even back-to-back 50’s in the finals after that insane dunk weren’t enough to get him the crown.

They traded 50’s again in the first overtime round, and when Gordon’s final dunk of the night yielded a 47 -- mostly because people couldn’t tell how absurd it was until they saw multiple replays -- it was all but over. The LaVine 50 to end it was a sure thing.

“It’s hard to say,” Gordon said when asked if he thought he should have won the contest. “Out of my first four dunks, I think potentially I could have won. It could have gone either way. Zach’s an incredible dunker. He went through the legs from the free-throw line. That’s INSANE. So off that dunk, you’ve got to give it to him. That’s why the trophy’s with him and not with me.”

By the time they got into the overtime, Gordon said, he just started making stuff up, trying dunks he hadn’t done before.

“If I knew it was gonna be like that, I would’ve prepared better,” he said. “We would’ve been here dunking all night, going back 50 after 50 after 50 after 50.”

Gordon was pretty much speechless by the end of the night. At one point, he was asked whether he could appreciate the historic nature of what he and LaVine were doing, while they were in the midst of doing it.

“Not really,” he said. “I kind of don’t really know what I just did.”

Because of just how entertaining the show was, people couldn't resist the idea of a rematch next year in Charlotte.

Gordon fielded a question about that in his post-contest availability as well.

"I kind of did a lot of dunks there, man. I don't know how many more I've got," he said, obviously referring to the fact that he had to break out six dunks instead of four, due to the overtime. "I've got a year, yeah. In Charlotte, yeah, if they want me to come back, I probably will. I've got a year to get my dunks ready."

Sign me up for that right now.

Dunk contest runner-up Aaron Gordon pulled out all the stops. (Getty Images)
Dunk contest runner-up Aaron Gordon pulled out all the stops. (Getty Images)