According to Marc Stein from ESPN, Dwight Howard has requested - and was denied - to have the rim risen to 12 feet for the NBA dunk contest.

Howard made the same request last season and was also rejected.

Last season Howard was planning to wow judges with a 360 dunk at 12 feet and an attempt at 11.5 feet which called for him to shift the ball between his legs in mid-air, Stein writes.

Fellow contestants Rudy Gay and Gerald Green took the challenge up to Howard, saying if he wants to dunk a 12 foot rim, they would too.

"You have that idea about moving the goal to 12 feet?," Gay wrote in his blog on nba.com "If you want to do it, go ahead and do it. I'm pretty confident in my jumping ability. If you go before me, I'll leave it up there and do my dunk."