After ten years in a persistent vegetative state, the NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Contest has died just a few hours after its 26th birthday.

The brain-dead event was removed from life support early Sunday morning when four NBA players realized they had finally run out of ways to thrust a basketball through a hoop.

“We tried. We really tried everything we could, but nothing worked,” Gerald Wallace said of his attempts to revive the contest on Saturday. “I did this one dunk where I jumped up and while in mid-air, brought the ball slightly down to my waist and then slammed it through the rim, which was actually behind me rather than in front like a normal dunk. I thought it was original, but this lady in the stands said something like  ‘I saw that [expletive] back in ’85 and twice in ’97′, so sit ya ass down’. So, I sat my ass down.”

Born in 1984, the newborn Dunk Contest immediately rose to stardom as a premier event during the NBA’s All-star weekend festivities. As a two-year-old infant in 1986, the event made history as a 5’7″ Spud Webb suspended every conceivable law of physics by dunking a ball with two hands into a basketball hoop without the aid of a trampoline or a body that would normally allow someone to be able to dunk.

However, around age seven, the contest’s health was severely weakened by the unknown, two-time Slam Dunk champion Harold Miner (1993 and 1995) and medically pronounced dead after Brent Barry took home the trophy in 1996. Kobe Bryant managed to resurrect the All-Star event in 1997 and Vince Carter nearly gave his own life in 2000 to save the contest by selflessly throwing his entire arm through the net.

The Dunk Contest would never be the same after 2000 and fell into a coma from which it would never recover. Players tried introducing cupcakes, stickers, chairs and other people into the show to try and revive the once vibrant spectacle, but to no avail.

David Stern addressed the media on Monday, but would not accept that the Dunk Contest had actually passed away.

“Our Dunk Contest is still alive and well, no matter what the doctors, fans or anyone other than myself is saying right now,” said Stern. “Just because it is lifeless and wreaks of unholy death doesn’t mean it’s actually dead. It’s just playing dead to set up the sickest dunk you’ve ever seen. So, make sure you watch next year or you might miss it.”

The Slam Dunk Contest is survived by the terminally ill National Basketball Association.