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2016 NBA All-Star Saturday Recap: Jeremy Evans, Karl-Anthony Towns, Klay Thompson and Zach Lavine all walk home winners

Jeremy Evans snatched the NBA Talent Challenge win from Norris Cole, Karl-Anthony Towns surprised Isaiah Thomas in the Taco Bells Skills Challenge, Klay Thompson knocked off Stephen Curry in the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest and the Verizon Dunk Contest brought the house down as Zach LaVine ever so barely edged out Aaron Gordon. Wow!

By Oleh Kosel
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

The festivities began with the NBA Talent Challenge and Norris Cole participated along with seven other contestants. After his performance, it appeared Cole had the win on lockdown.

However, Jeremy Evans was decided the winner through the fan votes casted of this inaugural event thanks to his incredible ability to sketch really well. Cole had to settle for second place.

An hour later, the Taco Bell Skills Challenge featuring Anthony Davis ensued. After taking an early lead when DeMarcus Cousins dribbled the ball off his foot, Davis was unable to make a three-pointer by the time Boogie splashed one home on his second attempt.

Cousins and Karl-Anthony Towns advanced from the bigs group during the first round, and C.J. McCollum and Isaiah Thomas from among the smalls.

After they both easily made the finals, Thomas and Towns had a photo finish for the trophy. Following a slew of missed three-pointers, Towns was able to find the bottom of the net first.

Almost immediately, he was tackled by DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis -- the players probably overjoyed by the fact that not only the big men scored the win over the guards but because Towns also hailed from the University of Kentucky.

Before the start of the real Three-Point Contest, Draymond Green and Kevin Hart squared off in their own three-point battle. Lo and behold, they each made 12 shots! (Does the result beg the question about whether Green is overrated? j/k)

Unfortunately, Hart was still declared the loser because he failed to meet an important requirement.

During the first round of the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest, Klay Thompson posted the highest score with 22 points and James Harden, Devin Booker and J.J. Redick all tallied 20 points apiece.

No problem for Stephen Curry to advance, right? Well, he had 17 points as he headed to his final rack, all consisting of money balls, but he missed the first three! No worries, he made his final two shots. LOL!

Meanwhile, Booker advanced to meet the Splash Brothers in the finals after he emerged from the three-way tiebreaker between he, Harden and Redick.

In the final round, though, Booker went first and put up a very pedestrian 16 points. Next, Curry posted a very solid total of 23, yet it did leave Thompson an opening. Well, he seized it by scoring 27, making all five of his moneyballs!

The final event of the night was the Verizon NBA Slam Dunk Contest between Will Barton, Andre Drummond, Aaron Gordon and Zach LaVine, the defending champion.

Barton went first and scored a 44 for this dunk, but it likely should have scored higher. For some reason, Magic Johnson inexplicably gave it a 6!

Drummond followed with a 36. (It didn't help he had missed on his first two attempts.)

Gordon converted his first dunk attempt and scored a 45.

With the crowd still waiting to explode, Lavine gave them a reason to get excited. He scored a perfect 50 after this beauty.

Drummond's second go-round didn't fare much better with a score of 39, but the problem wasn't him. Rather, he had enlisted Steve Nash to creatively pass him the ball with his feet, but the former MVP wasn't able to connect on the first several tries. (Nash is renowned for his soccer skills.)

Barton failed to slam through a second dunk attempt and was given a 30, the minimum score, regardless of whether the ball goes through the hoop or not.

Gordon's second dunk was quite impressive as he scored a 49. Shaquille O'Neal was the offending judge that only rewarded him a 9.

For LaVine's final attempt of the first round, he also scored a 49. Once again, Shaq failed to hand out a 10.

Not surprisingly, Gordon and LaVine met in the final, and boy, did they put on a show!

It was nothing but 50's on all of their attempts! Thus, the dunk contest went to sudden death.

In the last two dunks above, Gordon's jackknife earned him a 47 while LaVine scored his fourth 50 in a row during the final round. Consequently, Zach Lavine repeated as champion.

Drop the mic, the NBA Dunk competition is back. Although I felt Gordon was better prior to the dunk-off sudden death, LaVine was no slouch so we should all be able to sleep at night. Next time, though, let's just hand out two trophies because neither player should have walked away the loser.

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