Like I’m assuming many of you, I watched some of the most exciting basketball in the world this weekend. And no, I’m not talking about the NBA All-Star game. I watched the NCAA conference championship games this weekend (shout out Westy and the Blers). Oh how the mighty have fallen. NBA All-Star weekend used to be must-watch television as recent as 7 or 8 years ago. You had the celebrity game where they would get real, big name celebrities, and you’d watch them just go at it and have fun. Always a solid watch because something pretty sick always happened (when J.Cole threw down in the game I saw that on twitter for WEEKS). Then you had the 3-point contest, which to be fair, was quite good this year and is typically pretty solid. But the two places that the NBA has a problem are arguably the two events that should draw the most eyes.
The dunk contest has not been good since Zach Lavine and Aaron Gordon faced off the first time around. And if we are being honest, the NBA kind of lucked into that one being good because NO ONE could predict some of the amazing things we saw in that contest. And that was what? 5 years ago? In the past 5 years they have not had a big name in the contest, a single dunk worthy of a tweet, and not a champion with something to his name. Who took part in the dunk contest last night? Knicks rookie Obi Toppin, Pacers bench player Cassius Stanley, and Blazers bench player Anfernee Simons. That doesn’t scream “must-watch” to me. What happened to the Nate Robinson and Dwight Howard days? The Michael and Dominique days? How did an event that was so incredible fall from grace so fast. Somehow, some way, the NBA needs to add some kind of incentive to the dunk contest so that even starters on NBA want to take part. I’m not saying we should be seeing Giannis and Lebron out there throwing down but what I am saying is it totally unrealistic to think that maybe guys like Jaylen Brown, John Collins, Zion Williamson, or Ja Morant to name a few can’t be persuaded to take part? Players aren’t just gonna throw caution to the wind to do it for fun, we know this. The NBA has to offer up some kind of incentive where these kinds of guys would be tempted to bite. They need to figure this out somehow.
And then THE biggest issue. The actual All-Star game. Now hear me out, I love that the NBA named the All-Star game MVP after Kobe. Great move, perfect person to name it after. I don’t get the rule change in scoring though. Winner every quarter with a target score at the end. It just seems like a whole lot of rules that they don’t need. And I’m not one of those losers who demands defense in an All-Star game, that just simply is not realistic. However, the NBA needs to find some way to keep these games close and competitive. It is not fun to watch Kyrie throw a full court pass to Zion for a standing dunk. It’s not. Sorry.
So here is my out of the box idea on how to fix the NBA All-Star game. Keep voting the same, vote guys in the same way as they do now and get a player pool but do 24 All-Stars instead of 22. THEN, the players with the 8 highest vote counts then are “Captains” of their team and each captain drafts two additional guys to make a team of 3. From here they have a half-court 3 on 3 tournament and the winning team gets some kind of cash prize. I think something like this not only adds incentive, it also makes it wildly entertaining. It cuts the court in half, and the competitiveness absolutely soars. Do I think the NBA would ever do this? No, not any time soon at least. Should they? I don’t know, it’s wort thinking about though.
Anything But E 