The NBA All Star Weekend took place two weeks ago and there is only one word I can use to describe my feelings while I was watching – disgusted. Okay, it wasn’t that disgraceful of a weekend in retrospect, but I can’t get the image of Lebron James trotting up and down the court like he was too good to be playing in the game that is supposed to be for the best players in the NBA.
I honestly was extremely offended by the way the 2013 All Star Game was played. If you happened to miss it I can tell you that it looked like a bad street ball game where each player was just trying to show off their skills, do moves, and dunk. There is a time and place for this stuff and they’re called the skills competition and the dunk contest. I guess the All Stars didn’t get the memo.
What the game really turned into is a lot of sloppy basketball that would end in a 143-138 win for the Western Conference. Chris Paul would end up winning the Most Valuable Player award with 20 points and 15 rebounds. In my personal opinion, the reason Chris Paul was awarded MVP was because he was the only player to screw around and show off the entire game and still look good doing it. From what I saw he still made a few bad plays.
After watching this monstrosity I decided that if we want to see the players actually give an effort in the All Star Game there needs to be some sort of an incentive. For example, the winning conference of the MLB All Star Game gets the privilege of having home advantage in the World Series. Perhaps if the NBA did the same sort of thing the game would be a little bit more competitive. Maybe Lebron would be able to find the energy to actually try if the location of the NBA Finals was at stake.
However, the All Star Game was the only negative aspect of the NBA All Star Weekend. The Celebrity All Star Game was the first event to take place over the weekend. The game featured celebrities such as Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, comedian Kevin Hart, musical artist Trey Songz and even former NBA All Star Dikembe Mutombo.
The skills competition was the next event to take place over the weekend. This competition consists of each competitor dribbling through cones, making passes into targets, and shooting three pointers. The winner of this event was the Portland Trailblazers’ Damian Lillard. He was the first rookie to ever win the competition when he defeated defending champion Tony Parker. Lillard’s win also won a $25,000 scholarship for a man named Poppie Simmons through the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston.
The dunk contest was the next event put on during the All Star Weekend. I felt that this was one of the better dunk contests in recent years because I felt that the winner was not already decided before it started. Terrence Ross of the Toronto Raptors won the contest with a high flying, through the legs dunk while he also jumped over a child as well. In the end, the All Star weekend provided good entertainment from some of the world’s biggest freak athletes.