By the time he closed the Slam Dunk Contest on All-Star Saturday with an ordinary dunk he would later say he wasn't happy with, the crowd cheered wildly anyway. Meet the new king. And yes, we think the Slam Dunk Contest is probably here to stay now. When it comes to dunking, the NBA is now officially Vince Carter's world, and everyone else just gets to live in it and dunk for fun.

	Vince Carter passes the ball between his legs before slamming it for a perfect score of 50.

"He's definitely incredible," said Steve Francis, who finished second to Carter. "There's nothing else I can say about Vince."

"The guy can just hop," Raptor teammate and third-place finisher Tracy McGrady said. "I've seen all his dunks, but it still gets you out of your seat, just to see him do that."

They'll be talking about this dunk contest for years to come -- thanks to Carter, who is probably most responsible for the event returning to the NBA landscape -- unless of course Vince manages to top himself next year. Everyone knew the guy could dunk, but what he managed to accomplish on his third one, was hard to believe.

With McGrady standing a few feet from the basket and preparing to pass the ball to him in some fashion, Carter readied himself for something new. "I didn't have any idea what I was going to do. I made it up right before. I was doing it on instinct."

What he did was ask McGrady to bounce the ball high off the floor and straight up about five feet from the hoop. McGrady did it, and in came Carter. He flew through the air to catch the ball with his left hand, then transferred it to his right with the handoff coming between his legs -- just a reminder, he's still airborne at this point -- and then he jammed it strong with the right.

He then walks away from the basket and looks right into the TNT camera and says clearly, "It's over, it's over." And clearly it was.

Rest of the field...

It may have seemed like it, but Vince Carter really wasn't the only person dunking in the contest. Here we break down the others: Steve Francis: In a normal dunk contest, he wins. His second dunk got him a 50. He threw the ball in the air, got the bounce, and flew to the hoop while slamming it hard with the right hand. His fifth dunk he caught the ball and bent his knees after catching a self-bounce pass, then dunked behind his head. Tracy McGrady: He also got a 50, and it came on dunk No. 3, though the second dunk may have been better. On No. 2, Carter left a bounce pass for McGrady, and the high-schooler did a windmill dunk. The bad news: McGrady hurt his right wrist bad enough on a dunk in the finals that he couldn't feel his fingers on that hand. Stay tuned. Ricky Davis: The late replacement for hometown boy Antawn Jamison did fine. He scored a 48, which seemed a bit low, on a dunk where he went between his legs right to left like Carter did. Jerry Stackhouse: Disappointing. His best dunk was only a 42, and came when he ran from midcourt and did nothing special. At least he made the dunk... Larry Hughes: Tough night for Hughes. Scored a 30 on his first two dunks, which is the lowest you can get, because he missed them. Hughes seemed out of place and unsure what to do. A straight-forward dunk off an Allen Iverson pass closed his round with a 37.

"That was probably by far the hardest one," Carter said after the competition officially ended. "You have to have a good bounce, but you have to catch the ball and be able to put it between your legs, and at the same time still be able to make the dunk. So that was probably my favorite right now. I thought of it right before."

And in 50 years when the millions of people who saw the dunk try to describe it, this is what the children will be asking: "So, you're saying he switched hands between his legs while still in the air and he made the dunk? Come on!"

Deprived of the opportunity to dunk last season on stage for the world, as if the advent of highlight shows like SportsCenter isn't enough, Carter had something to prove tonight. He knows the fans love to see him dunk and he made sure to not disappoint anyone.

Let the record show that Carter actually dunked five times in the contest. In the first round, only a 9 from three-time former dunk participant Kenny Smith kept Carter from an unprecendented three straight scores of 50. In the finals Carter could have done a Larry Hughes and missed his jams (Hughes made one of his three dunks and finished last), it wouldn't have mattered. At that point he had the crowd and five judges -- Rick Barry, Isiah Thomas, Cynthia Cooper, George Gervin and Smith -- so transfixed that it didn't matter. He was going to win. Easily.

In the finals, after Hughes, Jerry Stackhouse and Ricky Davis had been eliminated, Carter actually wasn't that spectacular, but it was too late. In Carter's first dunk of Round One, he did a 360 from the left side. The crowd exploded. The next dunk he entered the floor from behind the backboard and did another 360. Each time he screamed while dunking.

We've discussed the third dunk. In the finals he did something else nobody had seen in a competition like this. It was a normal dunk, nothing special, but Carter got so high that he stuck his arm through the hoop and hung from it while bent at the elbow. Did the dunk deserve a 50? So what, it's Vince Carter.

On the final dunk of the day, with Carter officially needing a 42 to pass Francis, who also was pretty darn impressive, the anticipation couldn't possibly match the outcome. Carter tried to do what Julius Erving did in 1984, run the length of the floor and take off at the free throw line before slamming. He kind of did it, but the final result was an ordinary dunk. Crowd still enjoyed it, and the judges rewarded Carter with a 48.

"I try not to practice the dunks, and see how good I can do off the fly, just right there and at the spur of the moment," Carter said. "And most of the dunks you saw tonight were spur of the moment."

Frozen moments, Vince, frozen moments.