All-Star Weekend Recap

This past weekend, the NBA All-Star game made its much-hyped debut in Las Vegas – a city without a team, but apparently dying for one. The underlying storyline of the whole weekend was how David Stern and Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman have been talking about possibly bringing a franchise to Sin City, with obvious gambling and gaming clauses. (I must add that Goodman has a horribly gigantic Jew shnoz, which makes him look a lot like one of the Juzamek aliens from South Park. I can only imagine Stern and Goodman getting really loaded one night this weekend on blechh and hookers with big hekmahs, only to wake up the next day and say “I can’t believed I sucked you’re jagon." I apologize to all non South Park fans).

I will say one thing about bringing a franchise to Vegas. While I don’t know all the logistics, I’m pretty sure that Stern and team owners don’t want basketball betting to go down in the arena. At the same time, it’s almost impossible to open such a venue in Vegas without slot machines lining the lobby (trust me, it will kill attendance and revenue for that place if those sick gambling addicts can't blow 20 bucks on video poker at half time). I also assume there would have to be some type of a sports book in there. So my compromise is simple. Open up an arena, with some slots, maybe a few tables and a sports book – only one that doesn’t include NBA games to bet. Makes sense right? I’m pretty sure it doesn’t in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a good start if you ask me. On to the weekend, recapped event by horribly executed event.

All-Star Friday Night


McDonalds NBA All-Star Celebrity Game: Always a total train-wreck, this year’s celebrity game took the term to new heights. The proof is pretty much in the final score – 40 to 21. The game MVP you ask? Access Hollywood reporter Tony Potts, who edged out Bill Simmons in a celebrity go-kart race at the Super Bowl, putting him on a good pace for the Grand Slam of celebrity/fundraising sporting events. Honestly, the game had so many “what the fuck am I watching” moments that I almost had to change the channel. The saddest part was the fact that the two WNBA players participating were trying hard to score, and just failed miserably (It was pretty clear from the game that Tony Potts would be an eight time league MVP if he played in the ladies league). But the part that almost made me choke on my brisket (I was enjoying a nice Sabbath dinner at my grandma’s house) was when Reggie Bush rolled his ankle and had to go to the locker room. Honestly, even though he is OK, I don’t know if there would have been a worse moment in sports history than having the NFL’s brightest young star suffer a serious injury in a game more meaningless than Carrot Top’s life (he participated) itself. And since when did Carrot Top get so jacked? It looks like he's been working out with Barry Bonds on weekends. And another thing, this game needs better celebrity players! Where’s Brian McKnight when you need him? Dude’s got game!


Las Vegas NBA All-Star Dance Team: 30 NBA team dancers (one from each team) are voted by fans to perform for a few minutes, in what they think is the big-break of reality TV careers. Sadly I voted for this ridiculous contest on NBA.com, and may I air my disappointment on Crystal from the Dallas Mavericks not being selected (http://www.nba.com/mavericks/dance/Crystal.html). The girl has got ass up from the calf up.


The T-Mobile Rookie Challenge: I didn’t get to see much of the weekend’s first blowout, as I was getting ready for a night out at some rock bar in Long Island (Think Comrades from Wayne’s World 2 minus Del Preston. Actually, it was nothing like Comrades). Obviously the sophomores crushed the rookie team 155-114, which I already pointed out as being an awful class in my mid-season column. Game MVP was David Lee who managed to go a perfect 14-14 for 30 points, a feat even impressive in an exhibition game. Makes you wonder if this will finally convince Isiah Thomas to start him already. (Interesting side note: For everyone who tolerates Isiah’s patience with Lee because he was wise enough to draft him, my buddy Ian informed me last night that Zeke was ready to trade our most promising star last season for Theo Ratliff and Ruben “I chase my baby sitter down the hall naked” Patterson. So we may need to stop singing his praises).

All-Star Saturday Night


Haier Shooting Stars: Yikes…where do I start. First off, what the fuck is Haier and why is it sponsoring this event? And secondly, why does this event even exist anymore. I’d hate to use the word train-wreck again, so I’ll dub Haier Shooting Stars as a clusterfuck. Aside from the fact that it’s boring as hell (pretty much a team version of around the world), it was executed horribly. Each team was supposed to get two minutes to finish, but the shot clock kept stopping at one, and apparently nobody knew how to change it (and why would a professionally trained team of scoreboard operators know how to add one minute to a clock?) On top of that, whoever was in charge of it picked the worst possible old-timers for a shooting competition. Michael Cooper…your confidence is shattered. Good luck finding a head coaching job now. And I’m pretty sure Bill Laimbeer went his whole career hiding how fugly his shot looked, but after taking several attempts to hit a three-pointer, the secret is out. Pretty awful all the way around. It even gave the WNBA athletes confidence for hitting most of the half-court shots, which is the sports equivalent of winning a 50 dollar lottery ticket. Congratulations ladies.

Charles Barkley races Dick Bavetta: Yup, I bet on Bavetta. This was actually the first of two events I gambled on during the night. I had a strong feeling that Barkley would give out much quicker, but the fact is Bavetta is an old man who runs like a woman. And Barkley is no prime athlete himself, considering he was too winded to even speak after the race. Regardless, one of the more entertaining parts of the evening. There’s nothing like seeing Barkley back-tracking the final half lap, while Bavetta desperately leaps for the finishing line, perhaps taking the event a tad too seriously (he bloodied his knee for Christ sake).


Playstation Skills Challenge: It’s funny, I really thought I liked this event; yet when it came on I lost total interest fairly quickly. I think they need to add something to the relay course, or at least light those hoops on fire. I thought Chris Paul would win because of his speed, but there was a running trend in this competition. No one was trying to go remotely fast. I think LeBron James was jogging, and he made it to the second road. Um, I have nothing more to say about this event.


Foot Locker Three-Point Shootout: A pretty good field of shooters, and some pretty high scores put up. Arenas skilled the first round with a score of 23, and was looking like a favorite for the finals. Of course this was the second event I bet, and I took Nowitzki. (The only person who would bet on a Slam Dunk contest is Chevy Chase’s character from Dirty Work, who also bet Mr. T vs. Rocky. Or Krusty the Clown for that matter, who has apparently bet against the Harlem Globetrotters on numerous occasions. But once again, I’m rambling) Nowitzki did make it to the second round, but so did Jason Kapono, who until this season, looked like another white shooter from the West Coast who will never get burn. Now he’s leading the league in three point percentage, and is the Three-Point Shootout winner. He has a title as well, not a bad career for the UCLA grad so far. Unfortunately, Arenas could not match his first round performance, and decided it would be appropriate to shoot his last rack of basketballs with one hand. I actually saw him do this on a YouTube video, in which he challenges Deshawn Stevenson to a shooting contest. It makes his All-Star stunt look like nothing, as he rolls on the gym floor, yelling at Stevenson to distract his shots. He really is psychotic.


Sprite Slam Dunk: Finally, the highlight of All-Star weekend (at least 10 years ago), the slam dunk contest - which is now just called Slam dunk apparently. Anyway, the crop of guys they get for this thing lately, all four of them, never really build up too much excitement for the contest. This year, the judge panel literally consisted of the best dunkers of all time, Jordan, Dr. J, Wilkins, Kobe and Vince. And of course, Jordan stuck out the most, not because he’s Jordan, but for the Morpheus from The Matrix outfit he was sporting. He seriously looked like he was judging a dunking contest in 2028, after being cryogenically frozen. The event actually started out with some dunks. Gerald Green got a good assist from Paul Pierce off the edge of the backboard which he slammed down with authority. Nate Robinson had a nice assist to himself, bouncing it off the ground and finishing with a one-handed stuff. Note that they nailed these dunks on first attempt, which is very crucial in these contests.


Dwight Howard poked fun at not being allowed to dunk on a 12 foot basket, by slapping a sticker he plastered on the backboard at the same height mark. The sticker was a picture of his face smiling, and really showed his comedic side more than his dunking. In fact, Howard appears to be a pretty funny guy, from that and some other instances this weekend. But in the final round, Green and Robinson went head to head, in what seemed like a clear repeat for the Knicks volatile midget hitman. Only this year, his relentless attempt to nail a final dunk did not earn him a win. Instead, Robinson failed miserable over and over at a self assisted 360, only to hit after receiving two clearly illegal extra attempts. Green won with a dunk that looks a lot nicer the more you see it, a near free-throw line leap over a scorers table. All in all, I’m still on the fence about Slam Dunk contests this day and age. I think we need Mprpheus back.

(On top of that, I need to add that when Nate takes so long to execute his dunks in these contests, it definitely takes all the excitement out of them when he finally connects. I made a perfect analogy during the contest. If someone was trying to parallel park, and kept fucking it up while hitting both cars in the process, would you give them any credit for it once they got it right? That’s what I was thinking.)

Coming up next, my All-Star Sunday recap.