The NBA had their All-Star festivities in Houston this past weekend. They are spread over three nights: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. While it grabs the attention of loyal NBA fans, it still fails to tap into the older generations who wrote it off because they are all "spoiled superstars who put money first."
All-Star Weekend is when the League aims to grab the mainstream attention and prove why it's the best professional all star spectacle in sports. The problem is, the NBA seems to rest on its laurels and become complacent with this.
David Stern is a notorious "know-it-all". He's perceived as arrogant and out of touch, and looks out for the league's best interests even when it goes against rational thinking (see Stern Vetoes CP3 Trade, or Stern's Absurd Fine of the Spurs). I cannot speak for everyone, but I can only agree with these sentiments. While he's a very intelligent man and business savvy, he always thinks he's the smartest man in the room, and that cockiness can impede progress in certain areas.
Stern's two missions the last few years have been:
1. Make the game a worldwide phenomenon (like soccer).
2. Reside as commish for exactly 30 years to the day, and then let Adam Silver take over.
While the NBA's foreign markets were initially grown from the 1992 Dream Team's popularity, it will never supersede soccer as THE world's sport. There's so much more pride involved, typically because they play internationally. No, it does not count when teams go into Canada and play the Toronto Raptors. At least the NBA doesn't call their championship series the "World Series." C'mon, MLB. That's an outright lie.
The second goal is a complete ego thing. Athletes get ragged on for staying too long past their prime; league commissioners should be held to that same standard. Stern's best years are behind him, yet he trudges on for the sake of completing thirty years. Even Brett Favre thinks more sensibly than that. Let Silver take over already- no one wants to deal with you for another year, David. Step aside and let the league develop and evolve without you. Who knows- maybe in February 2014, Stern will change his mind and decide he wants to go for forty years.
Stern's biggest accomplishment has been growing the All-Star game from just a single game into a whole weekend filled with shoot-out, three-point and dunk competitions, musical acts and the main event: Sunday's All-Star Game. He'll gladly even point this out to you that yes, it was and still is his "baby."
"It used to be a one-day get together, and it's now not only a weekend, I
mean it goes way beyond that, when you look at the host city and all
the preparation that takes place," said longtime Phoenix Suns owner and
executive Jerry Colangelo.
Adam Silver has already began to outline how he will grow the game his way.
"We've discussed playing internationally All-Star games, I'm not sure if
it will work logistically, but it's something we'll continue to study,"
Silver said. "We've looked at other neutral cities. We've looked at
refreshing All-Star Saturday night and other innovative events for the
weekend, and I think we'll continue to do that, the same way we have
under David's leadership."
While this is all well and good, we live in there here and now. And at the moment, I'll tell you why the weekend is so popular and what can be done to make it better.
1. Friday's Rising Stars Game
The annual freshman versus sophomores game only continues to get better every year, showcasing the future of the league. This year it was a mix on both teams of freshman and sophs, chosen by Shaqille O'Neal and Charles Barkley. Standouts this year included Cleveland's Kyrie Irving, (32 points) and DionWaiters (23 points), Denver's Kenneth Faried (40 points) and Portland's potential rookie of the year, Damian Lillard (18 points). The final score saw Team Chuck beat Team Shaq, 163-135. This is always a fun way to kick off the weekend, and the drafting of teams this year was a great touch. This is the first of two things I would not change about the festivities.
2. Shooting Stars/Skills Challenge/Three Point Contest/Dunk Contest
This year the twist to all of these events is that they were tied together as being East versus West. This might have initially sounded great on paper to league execs, but to me I viewed it as an exercise in futility, and completely distracting of the individual efforts. Basketball is played as a team sport, and when a player looks out for stats or their own performance, it is frowned upon. But in these contests (aside from the Shooting Stars one), it is their chance to shine by themselves.
For instance, When the Eastern conference group of players (WNBA player Swin Cash, Miami Heat forward Chris Bosh, and former Hawk Dominique Wilkins) won the Shooting Stars contest, the Eastern Conference gained 10 total points. When Portland's Damian Lillard won the Skills Challenge, the Western Conference gained 20 points. When an Eastern Conference player ( Kyrie Irving) won the three-point shootout, they gained 30 total points. The Dunk contest champ (Terrance Ross) grabbed more points for the East.
While not calculus or even Algebra-level kinds of numbers here, it was just a waste of graphics on the screen and in my opinion dragged down the night as a whole.
Once I got past this and watched the Shooting Stars competition, I realized how much I loathed it. It's just a layup, a free throw, a baseline jumper, a straight-away three-pointer and another off to one side three followed by a half court shot. The first 5 shots should be made rather quickly since they are basic and uncontested. (You'd be surprised at how badly groups of players can do at that part.) THEN comes the half court shot. It all boils down to luck, after so many heaves are tossed up. There is a two minute time limit, sort of a mercy thing for down-on-their-luck groups. It basically devolves into Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller and Kenny Smith going "This guy is going to make it. No, THIS guy is going to make it! I'm calling it- THIS player is going to make the shot." It;s not "calling it" if you say it every time. This competition is a waste of time and should be completely eliminated. No one ever remembers who won, or cares.
Up next is the Skills Challenge. It's fun to watch, as long as the players aren't "too cool for school" like Reggie Miller says. Those kinds of players half-ass their effort, and it shows. Making this a group competition really ruined it. Each point guard should have been trying to best each other, not compete together. It's fun to watch them show off their accuracy and speed, as well as impressive.
The Three-point shoot out changes the temperature in the building. Now the real fun starts. Again, these respective conference players shouldn't be playing for their conference, but the name on the back of their damn jersey. Back in the day, this included up to eight players, and felt like a winner was crowned at the end. In recent years, only four took part in it, and there was no feeling of "They really shot well and won it". This year, six joined the fray: Kyrie Irving, Paul George and Steve Novak for the East. For the West, Matt Bonner, Stephen Curry and Ryan Anderson.
While it went from four to six, the team thing once again reared its ugly head. Matt Bonner has thirty-seven threes on the year. Paul George's involvement in this was even questioned by the announcers. Seriously, the dude was in last year's dunk contest. The strength of his game is taking you off the dribble. He is TENTH in the league in threes made. Irving won this- and he only has eighty-two on the season. His game, like George's, is off the dribble penetration. If you are going to continue to have this contest, NBA- put the guys in it who, I don't know...lead the damn league in threes.
And finally, our main event- the Dunk Contest. What was once put on the map by the likes of Michael Jordan, Daryl Dawkins, Dominique Wilkins and Spud Webb was then revitalized by Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady, Nate Robinson, Dwight Howard and Blake Griffin. And in 2013 your field was Jeremy Evans, James White, Gerald Green, Terrence Ross, Kenneth Faried and Eric Bledsoe.
If you are not a die hard NBA fan and just said "Who?" six times, well that proves my point. What was once powered by creativity, athleticism and star power is now replaced by unoriginality, too many bad tries and....athleticism. What's missing? STAR POWER. CoughLeBronJamesCough.
James promised for years he'd enter, but never did. Now he cites it is a younger man's event and he is "too old". Great cop out, champ. He was also afraid he's get injured. Hold on let met go research dunk contest injuries. Ok I'm back. Yep, that's right.....ZERO, EVER. NO, REALLY- CLICK HERE.
A part of what made the dunk contest so interesting and intriguing is we got used to the bar being set even higher each time, that we expected it to get better and better. Kind of like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa conditioning us to expect more home runs every year. And then when there's a drop off from 60 something home runs to 40 something, we go, "wait a minute, why are we going backwards?"
Simple. We have been desensitized to the difficulty of it all. Home runs are not easy to do (with or without steroids). Superhuman, gravity-defying dunks are no small task, no matter how easy Jordan, Dominique and Vince made them look. Think of violence before you saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or seven Saws. Now a finger cut off makes you go, "meh- is that it?"
It's great these young guys might make a name for themselves for thirty seconds on YouTube and then for fifteen minutes at the contest, but does any casual fan know who Jeremy Evans is? No. Yes, he dunked over a picture of himself doing that dunk, which I was told he painted himself. But how does that compare to Jordan's rock-the-cradle or Spud Webb defying the odds? It doesn't. It's all show with a barely-above-average dunk underneath.
The one recurrent theme in recent years' contests is the fact that the dunkers rarely get it right the first time. They show their cards, the audience sees it, and then it takes them three or four more tries until they get it right, if they ever do in a minute and a half. They rarely have a plan B dunk, and if they do- its significantly lamer. Sometimes their dunks are so hyped, they cannot possibly live up to it. Like Gerald Green.
His dunk consisted of cutting down the net to avoid getting caught in it, then dunking the ball, catching it in the opposite hand and dunking it again before touching the ground. Very unique, but the time it took to cut the net, miss all of his chances, and re-attach a new net set a new record for "when will this be over?" in the minds of many a fan. Oh, and of course he made it after it was his turn, while the pressure was off. #Lame.
Then there was you, James "Flight" White. His name should be changed to James "Out of Breath Wannabe Track Star" White. Every single dunk he ever does involves him running from one end of the court from the free-throw line. And guess what? He NEVER makes it on the first try. He runs back and forth while everyone waits for it to be over.
To his credit, Terrence Ross threw down some nasty, creative dunks. Props to him- he earned it.
The simple solution to the dunk contest? Add stars, mix with creative dunks and have them get it right the first time. They have practiced enough, therefore they should be able to do so in front of thousands of people.
All-Star Game
Then Sunday we had the All-Star Game. It was advertised as starting at 8 pm, but tipped off at 8:52. Please, NBA, if you are going to do that- just advertise the game to begin at 9 pm. All of the over the top intros with rising platforms and smoke with music artists in between were unbelievably unnecessary and a complete waste of time. Just start the damn game.
The game began, and in a low scoring first quarter, I saw less defense than all three Kardashians teaching a room full of athletes how to do Brazilian Ju-Jitsu. Players whizzed by "defender"s' outstretched arms for easy buckets, like the "defender" was trying to play tag. The only time defensive plays were made were because a pass was thrown in an errant fashion. You had your fun plays for the first three quarters, and the game tightens up in the fourth as always. It was a good close game (West 143, East 138) but a little more effort could be put forth by everyone involved. Chris Paul won the MVP with 20 points and 15 assists. No word on how many assists included asterisks to lack of defense.
There you have it. Another All-Star weekend down, and in my eyes a whole lot of opportunity for a quality effort out the window. While certain aspects of it are a success (Rising Stars, Skills Challenge), others are outright failures (Shooting Stars, 2013 Points System), and the rest just need to be tweaked (Dunk/Three Point).
Let's get it right next year, Adam.
No comments:
Post a Comment