Monday, February 21, 2011

NBA All-Star Weekend

Another great NBA All-Star weekend
The NBA once again outshined every other sport with there All-Star weekend. No other sport does such a good job recognizing these outstanding athletes as David Stern and the NBA does. The NBA does a great job at showcasing their stars and putting them in the most positive light they can. It is a great weekend to show off the guys like Tim Duncan, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett as they are finishing off such great careers. Everyone knows the game doesn’t matter much and those 3 won’t play very much, but the NBA can put a guy like Tim Duncan out there and talk about how good guys like him are on and off the court giving the NBA that positive light they need. I just don’t see this very much from the other sports. In the NFL half the players don’t even want to go to the Pro Bowl, hockey is hockey, and baseball always messes it up.
I am not even a huge NBA fan the last few years, but I find myself every year watching most of All-Star festivities. I love watching the frosh vs. soph game, and too see the future talent that the NBA is bringing in and will have for many years down the road sure makes a person excited about the future of the game. The skills competition usually showcases a couple decent players, but it is the weakest part of the whole competition weekend. The dunk contest was awesome, and I actually watched the whole second half of the All-Star game with the hopes of Kobe getting the MVP award. Nothing could have been better then Kobe dunking ahead of LeBron and patting LeBron on the backside kind of showing him up a little.
The dunk contest was one of the best I have ever seen. I still think that Blake Griffin didn’t even have to dunk the ball and he still would have won, because of the fan vote aspect being in place. I mean they could have had Michael Jordan come out and wave to the crowd and he would have won the fan vote. At least they took away the spin the wheel part of the dunk contest. The fan vote just makes no sense when you are trying to showcase some young guys who aren’t that recognized in the NBA yet. Like Charles Barkley said “You better watch McGee now, because we all know damn well the Wizards aren’t going to be on TNT anytime soon,” The first two dunks that McGee made were two of the best dunks of all time. Then you got Ibaka who had the best free throw dunk of all time yet the voters only gave him a 35??? Do you think that they were told not to let Blake get beat? Dr. J was pry busy tonguing McGee’s mom so he might have missed it and not even voted for Ibaka. For Blake to win on a dunk that a high school boy from Iowa did just didn’t settle right with me. It could have been the massive t-bone I ate earlier, but the dunks should be evaluated as a whole contest, just not the final two and then let the fans vote. This kind of took away from the best dunk contest ever as it looked like it was totally set up for Blake too win. I
Either way I guess, it was just a minor problem I had with the overall presentation of the All-Star weekend. I think as long as the NBA doesn’t ever take it back to Las Vegas, it will always be the best compared to all the other sports. Its not about who wins and loses the games, It’s all about showcasing the great young talent the NBA is full of now and the great career accomplishments from the older players. I personally think the NBA has the deepest pool of talent that it has had for a very long time. The NBA does many things wrong, but the All-Star game is something they pull of perfectly.
Let me know your thoughts about the All-Star game or what you think about the NBA these days. Would love to talk about what if guys like Reggie Miller would have sold out and went to Utah like Carmelo and everyone is doing now or will John Wall always have to play second fiddle to Derek Rose ? Hit me up on twitter @ChrisSturgill12 and tell me your thoughts.

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