NBA Dunk champ has big fan in former pitcher … his uncle

PHOENIX -- A 6-foot-2 guard with two NBA games on his resume shocked the world Saturday night by winning the All-Star Slam Dunk contest.

His Uncle Seth wasn’t surprised at all.

Mac McClung, who’d just signed a two-way contract with the Philadelphia 76ers’ G League affiliate earlier in the week, dominated the field in Salt Lake City, Utah, to win the event with a near-perfect score, to the delight of his father’s brother, former Rays and Brewers pitcher Seth McClung.

“It was really exciting and yet nerve-wracking, until he made that first dunk,” Seth McClung said. “After he made the first dunk, I said, ‘This is over. He’s going to get this.’”

Mac McClung executed all four dunks on the first try, starting with a leap over a friend on another friend’s back, complete with a tap of the backboard and a reverse dunk that earned a perfect score.

“I remember having him take ground balls in Durham, and he was good enough that the coaches came out and said, ‘Who is this kid?’” Seth McClung said. “I was like, ‘He’s 7 years old.’ Mac’s athleticism was always just off the charts.”

It runs in the family. Mac’s father, Marcus (Seth McClung’s brother), and another uncle played college football, and Uncle Seth would have played college basketball in addition to baseball at South Alabama had he not signed with the Rays out of high school. Mac’s mother was on the Virginia Tech dance team, and her father played football at Tennessee. Mac’s sister was a top-rated soccer player out of high school.

Mac himself was a three-sport star in high school in Virginia, before playing college basketball at Georgetown and Texas Tech. Now he’s trying to make it in the NBA.

“As a family, we’re supporting him unequivocally, right? And we’re looking at it analytically, like, what’s it going to take for him to stick?” Seth McClung said. “I think this is the event that puts him on the map. Somebody’s going to take a full chance on him. He’s 6-foot-2, so that’s the problem, but his athleticism makes up for that. As a family we’re so excited, and we hope that this is the event that starts everything for him on the big stage.”

McClung lives in the Tampa area and is still involved in baseball as a coach. It’s been 15 years since arguably his finest moment in the Major Leagues, a series of outings down the stretch for the 2008 Brewers that played a significant role in Milwaukee snapping a 26-year postseason drought.

“Man, I look in the mirror and I don’t even know the guy I’m looking at,” he said. “I feel like 2008 was yesterday. You know how much love I have for the city of Milwaukee. For me, it’s a lifetime ago, and yet it was yesterday.”