This weekend we got to witness basketball greatness bless Chicago for the 69th NBA All-Star Weekend. NBA All-Star Weekend this year was very emotional and meaningful as the planet lost the late great Kobe Bryant, his daughter Gigi and the 7 other people on board, and we also lost the pioneer for the NBA David Stern. The NBA did an excellent job in honouring them specifically Kobe & Gigi by changing everyones numbers to either 2 or 24. The black tag for remembrance of David Stern has been worn for All-Star Weekend just like it was for the regular NBA season.
To kick the breakdown of the weekend we have to start with the NBA Rising Stars game, where the brightest young talents get to go up against one another to showcase there talents.However the same problem that plagues every All Star game plagued the Rising Stars game and that is DEFENCE this does not mean that the game was not entertaining to watch however having to constantly watch as driving lanes get exposed for the open dunk does get tedious and painful to watch. But the dunks, the alley-oops, deep threes and fancy handles provided more then enough entertainment. Team World only shot 24.5% from the three point line in comparison to Team USA connecting on 43.6%, and with a tough shooting night like that its very hard to come back and win. Team World were up by 10 going into the half but once Team USA got rolling that was all she wrote. Score was 151-131, Team USA winning it. Miles Bridges was the MVP of the game with 20/5/5 on 8/12 from the field.
Next up we had the skills day, that started with the Skills Challenge. This year was a surprise but, as it ended up a battle of 2 All-Stars, the surprise however both were bigs. In an era where position-less basketball is taking a reign it was still surprising to see two big man make it to the finals of the event. The guys who made it were Domantas Sabonis and Bam Adebayo, with Bam winning the event in a race that went down to the wire.
Then we had the 3-point contest, there was a slight touch this year however with a green zone shot worth 3 points that was located 30 feet out from the basket. The shooting was lights out between Davis Bertans, Devin Booker and Buddy Hield all scoring over 26 points. In the finals but it came down to the very last shot by Buddy which resulted in a make and made him the new 3pt contest champion.
The dunk contest, in my opinion this was straight robbery. I don’t want to take anything away from Derrick Jones Jr, his dunks were insane however Aaron Gordon’s dunks were absolutely mental, it is very hard to believe that dunking over a 7’5″ would not make you win the dunk contest, it may look like he didn’t clear Tacko Fall, but if you look closely you see that Tacko adjusted very slightly last minute and moved his hand creating slight contact. I believe that dunk should’ve been a 50. However with all the controversy Derrick Jones Jr did win on some insane dunks.
Finally we have the NBA All-Star Game, the format was changed to honour Kobe Bryant. It included 3 quarters each of which were scored individually with the winner of each teams charity of choice receiving $100,000. For the 4th quarter however the total scores were added up with an additional 24 being added to the winning team and that was the target score. The game started off much the same little to know defence. Kawhi Leonard heated up hitting 8/14 on 3 point attempts. Going into the 4th quarter this is where the game significantly changed and got competitive, both teams started to play defence. The scores were Team LeBron 124, Team Giannis 133 setting the final score to 157. The game at this point was amazing, lanes were being shut down, post up plays and post defence was being initiated, blocks and fouls were made for an All-Star Game it was truly amazing. What also made it was the nature in which the game ended 155-156 Team LeBron up and Anthony Davis on the foul line. He missed the first one but sealed the game with his second free throw ending the gae at 157-155 Team LeBron winning it all and $200,000 extra for winning going to LeBrons charity of choice. Kawhi Leonard was Kobe Bryant All-Star MVP with 30/7/4 on 11/18 shooting.
This NBA All-Star Weekend is being regarded as one of the best of all time and it is easy to see why.
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