A few thoughts. Forgive me if they're a bit jumbled.
I think a couple of things hurt the dunk contest in the past several years. The silly pageantry, lack of star power and stupid formatting of years past nearly killed the contest. It was a shame that LeBron, one of the best athletes the game has ever seen, never participated. Likewise, it was saddening that the 'spectacle' of the Blake Griffin year drove DeRozan, a legit very good dunker, away from the event. He would have been a great inclusion this year as a rep for the home city of Toronto. Not knocking Blake necessarily, he was a great participant in his own right... but that year, the cars and fanfares and second backboards all just distracted from what the contest is supposed to be.
This contest was a huge step in the right direction. Less pageantry (Will Barton's intro was really the only offender here... Gordon's intro was pretty innocuous, and it didn't hurt that he backed it up and then some). Lavine and Gordon put on a hell of a show. That was fun.
Going forward, I'd like to see this as the benchmark - if you can't hang on this level, stay home. I don't care if they have to screen these guys behind the scenes or what. I understand that sometimes you just have a bad night, but nobody can convince me that Barton and Drummond ever had a chance at competing with Lavine. Screw filling a quota of four or six dunkers every year or whatever. If ten great dunkers want to compete, bring them all in. If there are only two or three, tell them to pack five dunks each... don't fill out the rest of the contest roster with filler. Build the format around the participants, not the other way around.
And find a way to the game's most athletic superstars back into the contest. Looking at you, Westbrook.