NBA All Star Weekend Recap

By Djack

NBA All Star weekend used to be one of the most highly anticipated events of the NBA season. It has been far and away the best all star showing of all the major sports for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, just like the other sports, NBA All Star weekend has begun to lose it's luster. The all star game itself was definitley the best it's been in years, competitiveness wise that is, however not televising the drafting of the teams was a huge miss. Getting rid of the east and west format was definitley the right plan since the west is 10000x better than the east. My biggest problem was with all the pregame theatrics that failed miserably, along with the low energy in the building for the Slam Dunk contest. Was anyone even in attendance Saturday night because I'm pretty sure after every dunk the only thing you could hear was the contestant yelling, not the fans. It was a sham, it was bad television, and now the NBA has to work on fixing that instead of the all star game itself. 

Anyway, here are the winners of all the events that took place over all star weekend:

Skills Competition: Spencer Dinwiddie

The only trophy the Nets will win this year. Tip of the cap to Spencer Dinwiddie as he continues to make the most of his opportunity. This guy was a nobody, now playing with the Nets he's been able to make a name for himself around the league. This dude can actually ball and might be paving his way to a nice payday quite soon.. All Star weekend is where you make a name for yourself on a national level and he did just that by winning a contest filled with star talent. The guards are back on top in the skills challenge, thanks to Spencer Dinwiddie.

Three Point Contest: Devin Booker

We know Devin Booker gets buckets, I mean the dude did drop 70 points in an actual NBA game last season. So, it was no surprise when he put up a record 28 points in the 3-point contest. I'm no expert on this event, but I think the most points you can get is 34, safe to say Booker did quite well. Especially, when you take into account that Paul George only ended up with 9 points and came into the final rack with only 4. Booker demolished the field and now gets the crown of 3-point king of the NBA

Slam Dunk Contest: Donovan Mitchell

The dunk contest was pure garbage. I mean Oladipo and Denis Smith Jr. didn't bring much to the table. So much so, that I can't even remember what cool dunks they had before being eliminated. Larry Nance did a dunk where he mocked his dad's signature dunk from the inaugural slam dunk contest in 1984, it was nice, but dad did it better, and that was 30+ years ago. Nance then had the best dunk of the night when he threw the ball off the backboard, caught it, then threw it off the backboard again while mid flight, caught it again, and slammed it home. It was so creative and unique that the fans didn't even know what he just did, which in turn definitley took away from the excitement of the moment. It wouldn't be enough, though. Donovan Mitchell won the event with a rendition of Vince Carter's 360 windmill dunk from the 2000 slam dunk contest. I had a few problems with him winning on that dunk because it was executed so poorly. He wore the wrong Vince Carter jersey while doing it, he did it so much worse than VC, and that dunk was done 20 years ago!!! How does a dunk done 20 years ago still win the dunk contest today, makes no sense. Huge thumbs down for the once great slam dunk contest.

NBA All Star Game: Team LeBron
All Star Game MVP: LeBron James

I'll be totally honest, I watched maybe the first 5 minutes of the all star game before focusing my attention elsewhere. I have no desire to watch a meaningless game. I for one, actually liked it better when no defense was played in the all star game and the guys were just throwing down sick dunks and heaving up deep 3-pointers. Instead, people wanted to see defense, which doesn't even happen in real NBA games anymore.  Well, the people got their wish and defense was played. As LeBron would say the integrity was restored to the all star game, which is total bullshit. No one scored over 30, LeBron put up his regular season stat line and won MVP. All in all I thought the whole weekend was a bust, especially for LA.