After seemingly wasting my life away watching this past weekend’s NBA All-Star festivities, I have spent the past few days analyzing what all-star games have come to mean.
The NFL equivalent is the Pro Bowl, which has become widely regarded as the true joke that it is, with few of its actual-voted participants taking time out of their schedules to even attend. It is tough, however, to justify one more meaningless game on the end of a grueling schedule, so perhaps the NFL should just do away with the game entirely.
The NBA All-Star weekend is a recent convert to mediocrity, seeming more like a weekend of celebrity appearances than anything else. With unreasonably high scoring and repugnantly below-average defense, the NBA All-Star game has transformed into anything but.
The MLB will serve as my measuring stick, for I feel that of all the major sports, baseball is the purest remaining form of all-star competition.
The MLB All-Star Game is the only remaining all-star contest that carries with it implications for which the participants will fight. The League that wins the All-Star Game reserves home field advantage for the World Series – a right many would contend serves as the deciding factor more often than not.
What does the NBA All-Star Game stand for? Nothing. Dwayne Wade has no reason to keep Blake Griffin from soaring for close to double-digit dunks in the first quarter. Carmello Anthony has no reason to stop launching 3-pointers, and nobody can keep Steph Curry from simply standing at the top of the key going between his legs a half-dozen times just for show.
The greatest offense that the NBA has on its record, however, is the depletion of the slam-dunk contest. What more can be done, honestly? How many more times are we going to see people run from the other baseline to attempt lift-off from the free-throw line in hopes of emulating Michael Jordan? How many more seated celebrities are they going to jump over? How much longer will our hope for LeBron James’ participation be undercut for some no-namer like Terrence Ross?
When the smoke clears and the lights fade, I believe that fans want the all-star game to feature the best from each league or conference squaring-off in a showdown of premiere talent. That is what the MLB offers, and that is what the NFL and the NBA have sacrificed.
Until this purpose is realized, I guess we will just have to stick to Googling the names of the slam-dunk contestants, because goodness knows I have never heard of them.
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