Eight WNBA players have defied gravity to accomplish something spectacular in women's basketball: dunk in a game.
Brittney Griner is one of them. On Saturday, in her ninth WNBA All-Star Game appearance, she opened the show with a showtime slam.
MORE: WNBA All-Star 2023 live score, results, highlights
The Mercury center holds the league record for dunks. USA Today reported last weekend that she had 25. Her slam Saturday made it 26. Eighteen have come in the regular season, six have been in All-Star games and two have come in the playoffs.
SHOWTIME DUNK FOR BG! 🤩 #WNBAAllStar pic.twitter.com/YVUQE0yfDB
— ESPN (@espn) July 16, 2023
The Sporting News looks at the players in this elite group.
Who was the first WNBA player to dunk?
Lisa Leslie sank the first WNBA dunk on July 30, 2002, for the Los Angeles Sparks against the Miami Sol. She broke the 10-foot barrier again for WNBA dunk No. 2 on July 9, 2005.
Soon after her were Michelle Snow, who dunked in the 2006 WNBA All-Star Game, and Candace Parker, who dunked in the final seconds of a 2008 Sparks game. Parker became the second player to dunk in a regular-season game.
Sylvia Fowles slammed one down during both the 2009 and 2022 WNBA All-Star Game. Griner joined the group as a rookie in 2013.
Jonquel Jones recorded a dunk in her first All-Star appearance in 2017, and Liz Cambage dunked in the 2018 WNBA All-Star Game, six years after becoming the first to dunk in an Olympic game.
Awak Kuier joined the group when she threw down her first dunk in June 2022.
Elena Delle Donne has dunked a ball in practice, according to the Chicago Tribune, and Glory Johnson threw down a one-handed dunk at the 2014 WNBA All-Star Weekend according to Bleacher Report.
How many dunks have there been in WNBA history?
Per Sports Brief, there have been 37 total dunks in WNBA history. Griner has by far the most with 26. Fowles, Parker, Leslie and Cambage each have done it twice.
How tall is Brittney Griner?
The Mercury standout is listed at 6-9, which makes her one of the tallest players in WNBA history.
