West Stomps East in NBA All-Star Game

The NBA has created a week-end of basketball-related entertainment that includes a 3-point shot competition, a dunking contest and culminating with a game among the game’s finest players. This year, the best three-point shooter in the league didn’t participate, the dunking contest was average at best, and the game was a blow-out. Despite that, and an uneven halftime show, this was one of the league’s better week-ends.

The three-point shot is an innovation that came from the merger of the American Basketball Association with the NBA decades ago. The ABA had a flair and approach to the game that the NBA of the 1980s adopted. The 3-point shot opened up the game by rewarding the ability to hit from distance. While Jason Kapono’s score of 24 out of a possible 30 (one point per shot and two for every fifth ball) was impressive, one can’t help but wonder if Steve Nash couldn’t score 30 were he healthy.

Gerald Green of the Boston Celtics won the dunking contest, but this year as last year, the event was marred by Nate Robinson’s inability to make a shot (this year, it took him 10 tries in the final round to drop his last dunk) dragged out the event and undermined the excitement. At 6 feet tall, his ability to dunk at all is impressive, and Mr. Robinson isn’t at fault here. The rules permit such nonsense. Next year, each player should get three tries, and failure to dunk the ball results in a “0.” It might discourage the more adventurous efforts, but it will also discourage endless attempts as shots that an athlete can’t execute. Heck, they might even practice a bit before the event.

As for the game, basketball is a team sport, and all-star teams are such in name only. They really are two groups of five guys who have tremendous talent. They are not teams. Consequently, the game lacked a team dimension. Nonetheless, basketball can’t be boring when 285 points are on the board at the end of a regulation game. The West won 153-132 because the players in that conference really are plain better all around. One only has to look at the win-loss records to see this.

And then, there is the setting – Las Vegas. No other major city in America has the same dedication of excess and frivolity, and the NBA All-Star week-end fits it perfectly. Multi-millionaires playing a children’s game and thinking it matters. Next year, New Orleans will host the week-end, a town that used to be fun, and which has since drown. A year and a half after it flooded, NBA commissioner David Stern said of the city, “We think it’s time to move past having this wonderful tourist ability, a great convention center, and a covered arena, and then you take your guests on tours of areas that have been devastated and where it seems like very, very little has been done.” It’s long past that time.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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