All-star Saturday night is usually better than the game itself. Hopefully, that isn’t the case this year. In Toronto a year ago we saw the best exhibition in the history which solidified Toronto as a great host. In a night that lacked real intrigue and star power the NBA’s showcase this year was fun but not overly memorable.
Even the affable Dikemebe Mutombo wasn’t having it.
Here are my takeaways from the best action during all-star Saturday night in the Big Easy.
RIP Skills Competition
The all-star skills competition has run its course. The players go at half-speed at best. It isn’t a test of who is the most skilled as it is a test of who happens to hit the three-point shot at the end the fastest.
Not only do the players not care, the viewing audience doesn’t care. There was no energy in the building for the competition and that may have been due to the many empty seats when it started. Do you remember who won last year’s skills competition? Or even who competed? How many great skills competition moments do you reference with your friends?
Eventually the NBA realized “two ball” didn’t work, and now it’s time to pull the shoot on its replacement, the skills competition. Maybe a baseline-to-baseline sprint while dribbling the ball would be fun? Maybe a father-and-son shooting competition? Who wouldn’t want to see Klay and Michael Thompson take on Dell and Steph Curry?
Or perhaps just a family feud in general. Could the Lopez brothers beat the Morris twins in a two-on-two game? How would their size play against Steph and Seth Curry? Could the Plumlees pull an upset because they have an extra brother to substitute? I’d even watch a dance battle between players blessed with rhythm.
Yes, I have had a lot of time to dream up potential replacements. That’s because the skills competition was not a showcase of skills or entertaining basketball. Quite frankly it was boring. Oh yeah, Kristaps Porzingis won.
From Latvia with skills
Porzingis brought home a title for the big men, showing that the modern day seven-footer also plays a skilled game. Having the intrigue of guards competing against big men is the competition’s lone redeeming quality. Again, I chalk this up to none of the guards putting it in anything past second gear.
Nonetheless the “Porzin-God” winning was a bright spot in what has been a dark year for the New York Knicks.
Lowry struggled again
The three-point competition has snuck up on the dunk competition to quietly become the night’s main attraction.
No Steph Curry competing was a letdown but this was still one of the best three-point fields ever. Every one of the shooters who took the floor Saturday night shoots over 38 per cent from deep and are top 22 in the league in attempts.
Kyle Lowry struggled in the competition once again. Lowry aired his first attempt and finished with just nine points, good for dead last.
Wesley Matthews and C.J. McCollum also struggled badly hitting just 11 and nine threes respectively. Defending champion Klay Thompson hit 18 and was surprisingly eliminated after the first round.
Gordon wins in his return to NOLA
It took Eric Gordon overtime to beat Kyrie Irving in the three-point contest. It was a redemptive moment for Gordon in New Orleans, where he had a hot-and-cold start to his career. It was also fitting a Rockets player won the competition as they make more three-pointers than any team in the league.
The World according to Kyrie
Most people used Irving’s loss in the three-point competition as an opportunity to rehash and troll Irving’s prior all-star weekend defence of his belief that the earth is flat and not round. An idea that even commissioner Silver took a shot at Kyrie over.
Counting Courtside Stars
The Saturday night of all-star weekend is unique because the players are also the fans. Want to know who the league values; take a look at the players who get sideline tickets for the Saturday night skills. This year the roll call of players and personalities included DeMar DeRozan, Stephen Curry, John Wall, James Harden, Paul George, Myles Turner, Paul Millsap, Isaiah Thomas, Devin Booker, Dwyane Wade, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant and Paul Pierce. Most of them were dressed to the nines, as part of the show was watching the all-stars react to great athletic feats by their peers.
Musical Interlude
After the three-point contest, DJ Khaled performed “All I Do Is Win” followed by “All The Way Up” with Fat Joe. An interesting choice by the NBA not to use one of the many New Orleans-based rappers. Either way, Khaled made sense because the music he produces is a vast majority of the tunes you hear playing in NBA arenas during pre-game layup lines and stoppages in play.
Irrelevant Intro
We have grown accustomed to lavish introductions for the competitors in the dunk competition. Last year, Aaron Gordon came out after a thematic trailer making the case for him as a dunker, walking out with accompanying dancers while wearing a rip-away tuxedo.
This year the players walked through smoke with a league-issued shooting shirt on. The production value was not only lower – it was a precursor for things to come.
Dunk competition
The dunk competition is partially on life support because the players have run out of new ways to actually dunk a basketball. So what you end up with is a variation of the same dunk over and over again.
This year’s dunk competition was a showcase for how the event has fallen on hard times. Derrick Jones Jr. is a great dunker but he shouldn’t have been in the competition because nobody knew who he was, and thus weren’t invested in what dunks he could or could not do. When he was first announced as a dunk contest participant he only had one NBA basket to his name. As of right now he only has three NBA dunks and has only played 20 total minutes in his NBA career. He acquitted himself well but failed to steal the show.
Either Gordon’s foot injury took away his bounce or his epic slam dunk performance a year ago took away all of his good dunk ideas. He was a major letdown in the performance. He badly missed most of his attempts and was eliminated after the preliminary round. His drone idea was genius and had the crowd in a frenzy. However, he lost them, and ultimately the competition when he couldn’t execute it on the first try when the suspense was still high. Gordon didn’t lose his creativity however as his drone dunk was the best concept we saw. Sadly, the only thing Gordon got for his trouble was an A for effort.
DeAndre Jordan came in to the competition with the biggest name recognition as the only all-star to compete in the dunk contest. His dunks didn’t look as impressive as his competitors because his height nullifies the degree of difficulty. This one was the most impressive of his two before he was eliminated from the competition.
The best dunk of the night was probably Jones Jr. going baseline with the help of Booker. This was a classic case of too much too soon. Jones should have saved this dunk for the elimination round as he never landed anything close to this afterwards.
Not sure if this dunk was a tribute to former dunk champion Dee Brown or a dunk punctuated by a mid-air dab dance but Glenn Robinson had people talking after this flush.
Jones Jr. failed to complete a dunk in his allotted three attempts in the first round of the finals. That made it virtually impossible for the D-league star to win it all. The most awkward moment was when he ditched a cheerleader he was using as a prop because he had lost all confidence he could land the dunk over her.
Glenn Robinson III sealed the competition with this dunk. It wouldn’t have been good enough too even get you in the finals a year ago but he did make it on is first attempt which this year was a rarity.
Robinson III winning will be remembered like another former Indiana Pacers dunker, Fred Jones. A solid performance against a weak field. Nobody thought Robinson would win and most other years he wouldn’t have.
Sager Strong and Curry Misses
In what was a heartfelt moment, TNT brought out a bunch of NBA stars and celebrities to shoot three-pointers for one minute to raise money for the Sager Strong Foundation for cancer research in honour of the late legendary broadcaster Craig Sager.
Then things got slightly awkward.
The plan was to have Steph Curry hit a half-court shot to top up the total from $130,000 to $500,000. This is a shot the back-to-back MVP routinely hits during pre-game. However, while wearing a hoodie and skinny jeans Steph couldn’t find the range.
The scene was tough to watch, as was the Twittersphere. Curry was a rather easy target for trolling.
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