All-Star Saturday Recap

Just finished watching All-Star Saturday and before I call it a night, I thought I'd pull a Dwight Howard and THROW DOWN some serious comments.

Geico H-O-R-S-E
This was kinda fun. It got a little dull at points when they couldn't hit a shot and seeing Kevin Durant win it with just long-range jumpers was kind of a letdown but hey... it was something different at least. Best shot to me was the jumper from the bleachers - probably not a huge degree of difficulty but at least it looked good.

Shooting Stars
Ahhh, the one time of year to see Bill Laimbeer chuck up half-courters. Good times. The Los Angeles squad got bounced early because they just couldn't hit the half-courter but it's always cool to see one of the Lakers' unsung heroes get to play a role in All Star Weekend. Oh, the Detroit team won but no one cared.

Skills
The thing that struck me the most about this one was the amount of half-assery going on. A few years ago when (I think) Kobe, Kidd, Parker, and Bibby were in it, they were hauling ass through the course. These kids were just taking their time with it all and made the whole competition kinda weak. I didn't even care who won by the end of it.

3 Point Shootout
The big story going in was Jason Kapono trying to win his third title in a row. The big story going out was how awful the competition was. Some embarrassingly low scores and it does the NBA no favors when the commentary team is putting down the shooters as being bad and how the really good shooters in the league aren't involved with it. The air goes out of the balloon when Kapono gets eliminated and some scrub from the Heat that I don't know wins.

Dunk Contest
What can you say? It was entertaining. There are issues with the Dunk Contest. As has been stated, almost every dunk possible has already been done in some fashion and most people are struggling to find something unique that they can physically do so in most cases, they're resorting to cheap gimmicks and the like. Sure, the Superman thing was funny as was Nate Robinson breaking out the green gear but... really? Then you have the horrible rule that they get two minutes to hit the dunk and if they fail, they get two more attempts. This creates horrible segments of the contest where they can't hit the dunk and everyone grows restless. I say go with the three strikes, you're out rule. If they can't land it in three, tough shit. I'd also like to see them go back to six dunkers but that's just me. The "big news" during the contest was LeBron "preliminarily" putting in his name for next year's Dunk Contest. That could be fun.

In the end, I think the NBA needs to boost the star power in these events by hook or by crook to really get people interested in them.

As for the game? I haven't decided if I'm watching it. I'm working and WWE's No Way Out looks pretty good so I might go for that viewing choice.