The always entertaining and God praising Magic Johnson professed that the excitement and allure of the NBA All-Star Weekend "is back! It is Back!" Wow, Magic, that is amazingly profound! The truth of the matter is that the All-Star Weekend is NOT back ... it just happens to be the ONLY All-Star event in professional sports that is any good and can captivate a decent pool of the sports viewing public. I mean seriously, what is it competing against?
MLB has the home run derby and then the game, which now "has meaning," because it determines which division will have home field advantage during the World Series ... WOW, that is really going to get me watching!! So, you have a bunch of guys showing off their lumberjack skills as they try and crush some soft toss pitching out of whatever park they are in for like, I don't know, 2 hours!! YES, that is some awesome television viewing right there!! Sweet!! The game is no better, because you end up with All-Stars from teams that don't have a prayer of even making the playoffs on the roster and they really couldn't care less about whether a team that has probably trounced them a number of times gets home field advantage or not! What incentive is them for being there other than the fact that the fans think that they should be there. It is a pointless divider in an otherwise epic length regular season that has me checking my calendar everyday praying that the season would just be over!!
Next you have to look at the glory that is the NFL Pro-Bowl ... another completely meaningless and pitiful event that about 10 people watch! After the Super Bowl, people are just drained and the Pro-Bowl has absolutely NOTHING o do with anything! Just give the guys a plaque with a nice gold plated divisional logo on it that simply states, "You are the best at your position in your division this year. Congrats!" That should be enough. Seriously, the true die-hard football fans will watch that game, but only to see if anyone from their team goes out there and hurts themselves after the grueling end of their season. It is the LAST thing that a fan wants to see is one of their marquee players go out there and get hurt during an exhibtion-type game. Imagine what Dallas fans would have done if T.O. went out and blew his knee playing in the Celeb game at this year's NBA All-Star weekend? Most fans would rather watch helmet hair Mel Kiper and Todd McShay talk about their Draft boards and who they think is going to impress at the upcoming combine!
As for the NHL, I'm not even going to waste the space and time ... it is worthless!! Probably better off having a Nascar All-Star weekend where just for fun they all have to turn right for a change!
Getting back to the NBA, it is just funny to me to hear that "it is back" when they don't even have a large draw for it anymore. Yes, I understand that there is the skills challenge and that other one with the WNBA players, which was won by my boy "The Admiral" by the by, but people really just want to see the 3-point shootout and the dunk contest, regardless of the fact that the dunk contest has really suffered since Vince Carter's disgustingly dominating performance of 2000.
The 3-point shootout is still pretty good, but it used to be great. They used to have guys that could actually hit those shots consistently (Hornaceck, Bird, Hodges, Stockton, Mullin, Miller, etc.), not like last night. I'm sure my brother was dying with every release from Steve Nash's hand ... 9 freakin' points!!! If it were a challenge where you had to sprint from end to end, pull-up and nail 3's Nash would dominate, but this is not his game. His performance was as devestating as Jason Kidd's flop, but at least Nash didn't do that with his son sitting right next to him - I thought that was hilarious, because as soon as Kidd crashed out his son was all about the other contestants and ignored ole Daddy-O.
As for the dunk contest ... what the hell is witht he 4 contestants? I watched them showing all the old competitions and they would have the camera pan down the row of contestants and it was like a mile long, at least 8 guys would be on board. I must admit, Howard is a straight up baller and all of his dunks were sick! But, he only had to beat 3 guys! Jordan, Dominique, Spud Webb, Dee Brown ... all of these guys had to beat quite a few more and it was a lot tighter competition.
So here it is ... Cut the crap with the skills challenge, the WNBA thing is OK, but get some more REAL shooters in the 3-Point contest and bring back more contestants for the dunk contest ... oh yah and no more 2 minutes to do the dunk and complete it ... none of the legends of the dunk contest NEEDED more chances and that is why they are legends!!!
Keywords: 3-Point Shootout, All-Star Game, Dunk Contest, Dwight Howard, Home Run Derby, Magic Johnson, MLB, NBA, NFL
