NBA All-Star Weekend | Empty the Bench

- The Season's Over -

Grading the 2010 NBA All-Star Weekend, Siskel and Ebert Style

February 12, 2010

By Brian Spencer and Zachariah Blott

NBA All-Star Weekend is upon us. Time to take a deep breath, watch some light-hearted entertainment featuring the NBA’s biggest stars (or at least most of them), and to make up some trade rumors in preparation for next week’s trade deadline.

Yes, it’s a busy weekend with a total of seven events on Friday and Saturday before the All-Star Game itself caps things off on Sunday. I’ve pulled in ETB ace contributor Zachariah Blott to join me with a few quick thoughts on each of them.

Enjoy the festivities, and catch you next week.

Rookie Challenge

Brian Spencer: Thumbs Way Up
The highlight of the weekend and the one event you can record, save, and watch again and again. By sheer experience alone the format tends to favor the Sophomores–after all, the selection committee has had over a season’s worth of performance to weigh, as opposed to just a few months for the Rookies–but the end result matters not. It’s all about the highlights, the dunks, the energy, and showcasing the league’s best and brightest young athletes. The closest thing to a NBA-sanctioned And-1 format featuring NBA players.

Zachariah Blott: Thumbs Up
Unlike the real game, these guys are still trying to prove themselves worthy of playing on All-Star weekend. Some of these rookies surely like all the parties and buzz (and, ahem, groupies), so they want to be invited back for their sophomore season, and will actually play hard to make it happen.

Shooting Stars Competition

Spencer: Thumbs Way Down
I just don’t get it. It’s a silly concept, mashing current stars, old stars, and WNBA players together in a half-hearted competition executed at half-speed. By now we all know the WNBA exists, but unfortunately, the NBA still won’t accept that most NBA fans don’t care if it exists or not. Off with its head!

Blott: Thumbs Down
This is an atrocity that is somehow even less fun to watch than the WNBA, whose players the NBA is clearly trying to get you familiar with with this competition. One of the teams this year isn’t even a real team location: Texas. They got Dirk Nowitzki from Dallas, Becky Hammon from San Antonio (don’t worry, I didn’t know they had a WNBA team either), and Kenny Smith representing Houston of old. Chris Webber chucking up half-court shots will be the best part of this.

NBA D-League All-Star Game

Spencer: Thumbs Up
There are far less opportunities for basketball fans to see guys from the D-League, many of whom were stars in college, some of which have NBA experiences, many more of which are on the cusp of landing a spot in the big leagues, than they do of catching the WNBA, which will have 18 regular-season games broadcast on ESPN, plus the playoffs. How many does the D-League get? None (although you can watch all games live, for free, on NBA FutureCast.

I want to see the D-League flourish and continue taking baby steps towards expansion. This showcase might not be the best selling point on the general American public–the game will likely be five times as sloppy as the Rookie-Sophomore Challenge–but it’s a step in the right direction and totally worthy of exposure on this national stage. (And now, a shameless plug for our two-part interview with D-League Digest’s Steve Weinman, which is chock full of D-League goodness. Here’s Part I, and here’s Part II.)

Blott: Thumbs Down
No offense to the D-League’s ten fans, but nobody cares. Everyone knows we’re not witnessing good basketball this weekend, so it’s obviously all about satisfying the ADD/MTV fans, and that’s it. D-Leaguers don’t fit that bill. That being said, at least they now split the teams into the East and West Conferences, and not the Red Team and Blue Team like last year.

H-O-R-S-E Competition

Spencer: Thumbs Up
Love the overall concept and that The Durantuala headlines the bill, though Rajon Rondo and Omri Casspi are puzzling choices. How in the world was Monta Ellis not invited to compete?

Blott: Thumbs up (conditional)
Kevin Durant is obviously a good player for this type of competition, and I hope he doesn’t become too important for it too soon. That being said, this would be a great contest if and only if two specific players fill the other two slots: Kevin Love and Rasheed Wallace. Geico can go to hell, by the way, for bastardizing this kid’s game.

The Skills Challenge, Slam Dunk Contest, the All-Star Game itself, and more after the jump…

Skills Challenge

Spencer: Thumbs Down
Wii Sports Resort has a basketball mini-game that mimics the three-point shootout. The trick is keeping your wrist straight, following through, and releasing the z-button at the optimal peak of your Mii’s jump. Right, just like shooting hoops in real life, except for the z-button part. There are even money balls! I no longer have a Wii, but if I did, this is what I’d be playing during the anticlimatic snoozefest that is the Skills Challenge. That, and/or cutting up oversized sushi rolls, loaves of bread, and digital clocks in the “Speed Slicing” mini-game. Good times.

Blott: Thumbs Up
This fairly new addition includes stars you care about and would actually like to see compete; even its worst field ever (2005) included Steve Nash and Gilbert Arenas. Not only that, they bust their butts to accomplish things at a speed you can appreciate. They should put an And-1 player in this each year just to remind us why they do the streetball thing and aren’t in the league.

Andre Iguodala Photo Credit: Icon SMI

Slam Dunk Contest

Spencer: Thumbs Up
The dunk contest severely stagnated during the mid-90s: who can ever forget that timeless 1996 classic when legendary high-flyer Brent Barry dramatically ousted Michael Finley and Greg Minor? Fortunately, in recent years the participants have had all kinds of leeway to get creative with props and such, and despite Zach’s curmudgeoning below (only teasing you buddy), that’s helped make bring it to new, blatantly over-the-top heights. Now if we could just do away with the tired novelty of watching short men dunk…

Still think Gerald Green was robbed in 2008; not only was the Birthday Cake Dunk creative and perfectly executed, his barefoot dunk was sorely underrated.

Blott: Thumbs Down
Dominique Wilkins. Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryant. Vince Carter. Nate Robinson. Something went wrong along the way. This contest used to have some legitimate talent that could do electrifying dunks you never even thought of before. Now the league is begging players to do it. And the props are officially out of control. If you’re going to allow it to be this ridiculous anyway, at least allow the best dunker on the planet to compete.

Shaquille O’Neal wants superstars back in the contest, which is a great idea. About 5 years ago, I thought it would be really sweet if some big company (but not those assholes at Geico) put up a $1 million winner’s prize if LeBron, Kobe, Vince, Stevie Franchise, Iguodala, and J-Rich all agreed to participate. Someone’s gotta be able to make something like this happen every 4 years, creating a World Cup of dunking that would attract stars again.

Three-Point Shootout

Spencer: Thumbs Up
I’m dating myself some here, but when I think Three-Point Shootout, the first thing that pops into my head is… Craig Hodges! The former Chicago Bulls sharpshooter won the event 3 years straight from 1989 – 1992, and though his final scores mostly pale in comparison to other winners, he does hold the record for most makes in a row (19!) and is tied with Jason Kapono for most points in a round with 25. We’ll never forget you, Craig.

Blott: Thumbs Up
The field of competitors often makes sense, no one big times it, and fans can recreate it in their driveway at home and lie to their friends about how well they would do. It’s a pure shooting contest without crazy rules (outside of the money ball, which isn’t that bad of an idea).

Fan Voting

Spencer: Thumbs Up
Oh, Zachariah… sneaking in a potshot, below, at our boy Gerald Green. Shame on you, Zach, shame on you.

The fans need to have a say in who plays in the All-Star game, no matter how undeserving the players they vote in may be. It just shouldn’t always come down to the starting lineup, or… something. Maybe there’s a system wherein the fan vote, the coaches’ vote, and the players’ vote are all weighted in a certain way. Or maybe since our friends in China are allowed to vote, we just open it up to every country who has players currently in the NBA, because I won’t rest until Andres Nocioni gets voted in. To Argentina!

Blott: Thumbs Up (conditional)
All-Star Weekend has very little to do with actual basketball, so I’m OK with the fan voting having a place – within reason. Allow the coaches to select the participants in the game, and then let the fans vote on the starters from that deserving bunch. It would take approximately one day to get over a million votes on the Internet, so I’m sure this could be accomplished (and then we wouldn’t have ballots missing Joakim Noah and Chris Kaman). Also, eliminate the text vote in the Dunk Contest, and bring in some old timers like Bobby Knight who won’t be impressed by cupcakes and costumes to judge it.

All-Star Game

Blott: Thumbs Down
Think of the reasons you love basketball. If numbers 1 and 2 are uncontested tomahawk jams and wild 3-point attempts, you’re probably confused by the fuss over Tim Duncan. If instead you like teamwork (you know, passing, defensive rotation, etc.) and hustling players, there’s a good chance you don’t even watch this thing anymore. At least it’s more exciting than the last 8 innings of baseball’s All-Star Game.

Spencer: Thumbs Down
It’s fun, for at least a half, to see your hometown and/or favorite players out there. Everybody knows it’s a mostly silly game that’s more exhibition than competition, which is fine, but there have been plenty of exciting, if not forever memorable, moments over the years. I’m sure there’ll be a few this year too.

But… there’s something really awkward about it. Maybe it’s just this generation’s breed of superstar, or maybe it’s always been like this, but whenever they run footage of the teams “clowning around” during their few practice sessions, or laughing it up on the bench or in the locker room, to me it feels forced, sometimes begrudged, smile for the camera and look like you’re having so much fun.

Some of them are of course friends on and off the court and genuinely some of the interaction, but there’s just something almost unbearable about seeing all those massive egos packed into two locker rooms and all of them pretending to get along like best pals. And, ya know, why should everything be chocolate cake and mint ice cream? They’re in the middle of the season, fighting with each other for the playoffs.

Nah. The headlining event isn’t one I need to watch for more than a quarter or so. Now, what I would watch is first-time All Star Chris Kaman take everybody out to his land in Michigan for a shooting (read: with big, scary fucking guns) competition. That would be entertaining.