All Star Revival

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All Star Revival

Written by Mark Grey

Derrick Rose

02.19.10

by MARK GREY

NBA All Star weekend has come and gone and sadly enough, the biggest story of the whole weekend was the game's record breaking attendance. While thousands of people flocked to Dallas to see a weekend of entertainment, what they witnessed was more like a weekend long funeral. After years of being on life support, All Star weekend all but died in Dallas last weekend. Once seen as a can’t-miss sporting event, it has become unwatchable. For all those fans out there who are worried that All Star weekend will never be the same, don’t worry. I have put on my thinking cap and have come up with a fail-proof way to save it.

Although there are plenty of things that need to be changed about All Star weekend, lets start with what doesn’t need to be touched. First off, the TNT team of Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson and Reggie Miller couldn’t be better. The cast is non-stop laughs and they make unwatchable events tolerable. Next is the Rookie-Sophomore game. Although the game features less defense than your average shoot around, it’s a great chance to see the league's young talent. The majority of the game's top Rookies and Sophomores play on bad teams that most of the country never gets to see, so the game serves as good exposure for the future stars of the league.

While I must admit that when it first came out it seemed like a pretty lame physical challenge off of Nickelodeon’s 1990 hit show Double Dare, the skills competition has slowly become one of the best events of the weekend. It is a competition between point guards and it actually features the top point guards in the game. The winner of the event can actually say he beat the best at his position, something none of the other contest winners for the weekend can say. Although it is not one of the most hyped events of the weekend, it is still a keeper. The three ball competition is a take it or leave it event which makes for a good way to kill time while seeing some of the game's former greats. It’s also free publicity for the WNBA so what the heck, we can keep that too.

Now that we have established what can stay, let's get down to reviving this thing called All Star weekend. First up, the Horse competition. This is the easiest thing to fix -- get rid of it. For lack of a better word, it just “sucks.” Last year’s game was horrible and somehow this year's version was even worse. The only people who looked less interested in the game than the fans were the contestants. Horse is a game kids play outside in elementary school at recess. It just doesn’t translate well to grown men playing inside. Watching NBA players shoot one-handed free throws and other dumb shots is like inviting Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson over and seeing who is better at parallel parking. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.

The three point contest is another easy fix. They just need to switch the contestants with the people sitting courtside. There is no reason I should turn on my TV and have to watch Ray Allen, Steve Nash, and Dirk Nowitski watch Dequane Cook and Channing Frye shoot. No disrespect to either contestant, but something is wrong with that picture. That’s the equivalent of going to the hospital and the doctors are just standing there watching the nurses operate.

Perhaps the biggest dud of the whole All Star weekend was the dunk contest. What used to be the main event of the weekend was the biggest disappointment. After that hour, I was left wondering what I was more upset about: the fact that I wasted my time watching it, or that I deleted an episode of 24 off my DVR to record it (had it been two hours long and I was forced to erase Jay Z’s live concert at Madison Square Garden, I would have been beyond upset).

The one thing that used to make the event is now missing all together: pride. When Michael Jordan and Dominque Wilkens used to battle, you could tell their pride was on the line. When Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, and Steve Francis put on a show, it was about showing the world who was the best dunker. In this year's contest, it looked like Shannon Brown and Gerald Wallace spent as much time thinking about their dunks as they did picking out their socks in the morning. Between the two of them, there wasn’t an ounce of pride displayed. Both of them look disinterested in being there, and if I didn’t know any better, I would say their appearance was court ordered.

So how do we get the pride back in the dunk contest? Simple - make the dunkers represent something. Let the NBA players vote for two or three players they want to see represent the NBA in a dunk contest for the title of best dunker in the country. Let the best dunkers in the NBA face off against the best in the D league, the street ball circuit, and whatever league James White is in. That would be a real battle to see who really has the best dunkers. You think some young NBA player wouldn’t do his best to put on a show knowing he is representing Kobe, LeBron, and the entire NBA with his performance? How is that for pride? The result would be arguably the best dunk contest ever seen. There is a good chance the NBA would lose, but players all over the league would be fighting for the chance to represent the NBA.

Last but not least, it's time to fix the actual All Star game itself. Just like the dunk contest, the game itself needs the pride factor restored. So how about we take it back to 5th grade recess and have two captains and let them pick the teams? Once the players have been chosen to play in the All Star game, the fans then select two captains (this year surely would have been Kobe Bryant and LeBron James) and let them pick players from the list of players who were named All Stars. How exciting would it be to see which players were picked in what order? The draft itself can be held on Friday night and be an event all in itself. Would Kobe pick Dwight or Duncan? Would LeBron rather run with Nash or Paul? Who would be the first pick? Who would be the last? Every player on the court would be playing with pride. Kobe and LeBron would want to show that they had the better team while everyone else would be trying to prove that they should have been picked higher. Just like that, the All Star game is fixed.

I know what you’re thinking: what a great idea. Why hasn’t anyone said this before? The answer is because no one spends more time sitting in their car in traffic than I do. Will we ever see any of these changes? Of course not, it makes sense and one thing I have learned in life is that things that make sense rarely happen. Who thought it was a good idea for the All Star game to end at 11 pm on the east coast on a work/school night? Is the NBA now targeting the unemployed audience? Although I know my ideas will never come to life, something needs to change. It’s never a good sign when the people who are paid to be there call the night awful (like Kenny & Charles). Let’s hope something happens soon because All Star weekend is all but dead.