NBA All Star Weekend 2006

[xfactor]

With NBA All Star Weekend coming up, thought I'd start a thread to see what you guy's opinions on it are...

First of all, have any of ya'll been to ASW before? If so, what did you think of it?

Weekend Events:

Rookie/ Sophomore Game:

Rookie Team:

Andrew Bogut of the Milwaukee, Luther Head of the Houston Rockets; Danny Granger and Sarunas Jasikevicius of the Indiana Pacers; Chris Paul of the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets; Channing Frye and Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks; Charlie Villanueva of the Toronto Raptors; and Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz.

Sophomore Team:

Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic, Emeka Okafor of the Charlotte Bobcats, who is injured and will not participate; Luol Deng, Ben Gordon and Andres Nocioni of the Chicago Bulls; Devin Harris of the Dallas Mavericks; T.J. Ford of the Milwaukee Bucks; Nenad Krstic of the New Jersey Nets; Jameer Nelson of the Orlando Magic and Andre Iguodala of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Comments: No comment on this game as of yet other than guys being on the rookie team that do not belong.

And how did Terrence Ford make the sophmore team and its his 3rd year in the league?


Slam dunk contest:

Josh Smith of the Atlanta Hawks, will return to defend his crown, along with Andre Iguodala of the Philadelphia 76ers, and rookies Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks and Hakim Warrick of the Memphis Grizzlies.

Comments: I think Josh Smith should repeat unless Nate makes his dunks. Since he is a crowd favorite, if he can throw down without any misses he might get the nod.

3 point shoot out:

Returning champion Quentin Richardson of the NY Knicks, with the field including Seattle’s Ray Allen, who won the competition in 2001, Dallas’ Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry, Detroit’s Chauncey Billups and Phoenix’s Raja Bell.

Comments: Too many people from Dallas. Dont know these guy's 3 point FG % but Q Rich wouldnt even be in it without being defending champ. I look for Dirk Nowitzki to win this one.

Playstation Skills Challenge:

Skills Challenge features the contest’s defending champion and 2004-05 NBA MVP Steve Nash of the Phoenix Suns, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ LeBron James, rookie Chris Paul of the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets and Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat.

Comments: Dont know what LeBron is trying to prove by getting in the contest but it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Can Wade handle the ball well enough to be a threat? Chris Paul got hurt last night and might not participate but he could be the dark horse. Dude has improved his game a lot from last year since playing for Wake so maybe he has a chance to ride his lucky streak to an ASW victory but as much as I hate to say it, looks like Steve Nash has the edge on everyone else in the event.


NBA All Star Game:

The reserves are supposed to be announced tonight on TNT so we shall see who all makes the team . We all know who has a good chance of making it but I wonder what deserving player(s) will get the shaft this year.

Props goes out to DROP's boy CB , for making his first all star team despite playing for a crappy franchise and having to get in the hard way (the coach's vote).

 

[RunawaySlave]

I think they are trying too hard to make this a grand event
Hate to sound nostalgic, but I remember when the game
itself was the spectacle....the Slam dunk was nice, but just
a sideshow. But now they are trying too hard to market it
and it comes off as corny now.

Plus, outside of Jordan, dunk champions haven't amounted
to much lately. Josh Smith included. The other events are
done to offset all these black folks monopolizing all the
spotlight in the dunk contest

The game itself hasn't been entertainment....or any good
in years. The last time I enjoyed a game was the year
Scottie Pippen won MVP.

After they get all their little trick plays out of the way (by
the 6 minute mark in the 1st quarter), we are left with
nothing but dudes launching bomb after bomb....shooting
from further and further away from the hoop. I guarantee
there will be at least one segment where they are all taking
30 footers....If that happens, who do you think that sort of
game favors???? I'll tell you who....the faggy euros!!

I will try to enjoy it. But with all this european and south
of the border diversity, the game is so watered down, that
it will be difficult to do.

But I am glad for CB4 though. Congrats. But you know the
only reason why he made it is because the Raptors play for
another country. If Bosh played for Milwaukee or Memphis,
he'd be sitting at home

 

[Havoc]

The last Slam Dunk contest I saw and enjoyed was the 2001 (I think) contest where Vince Carter decided to find a new way to fly.

 

[RunawaySlave]

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against any of these events.
They just seem so contrived. Let it be more of a spontaneous
event. Hundreds of fans holding cards with the number 10 on it
seems a little phony to me. Like when the dude in the Five Heartbeats
got his girlfriends to get her friends to cheer harder for them. Phony

Last year with Chris Anderson getting what seemed like a dozen
chances to do a dunk was just ridiculous. Someone obviously wants
him to get some extra exposure for some reason. If that was Eddie
Curry getting that many tries, he would have been dismissed or the
network would have had to brake for a commercial

That all star game is missing that real hoop element. It's more like
a fashion show now. It should be a showcase for the best teams
comprised of the best players, not just an individual talent show

 

[cranrab]

i can't recall the last time i watched any of the all star events live... now the parties on the other hand...

the last time i watched an all star game must be at least a decade ago...

today's games are even more meaningless than in the past, because fans are (and have been) voting in players that don't play much (or at all) due to injury... examples: yao ming this year, grant hill and vince carter in past seasons...

all that old-timers, freshman and sophomore bullshit makes me nauseous...

 

[Winchesta Heat]

Just hasn't been very interesting these past few years.... we'll see.

 

[RunawaySlave]

Watching a replay of a classic All Star game on NBA-TV
(free for a week). Here is the starting lineups:

East:
Patrick Ewing
Charles Barkley
Scottie Pippen
Michael Jordan
Isiah Thoma

West:
David Robinson
Karl Malone
Chris Mullin
Clyde Drexler
Magic Johnson

On the bench, you got guys like Mutumbo and Jeff Hornacek
Tim Hardaway, Otis Thorpe and Hakeem Olajuwon for the west
Brad Daughtery, Joe Dumars (but not Miller, he didn't belong
anyway) and Dennis Rodman for the east. You wanna see
an all star game, here you go!! Teamwork galore


They just put Reggie Lewis in the game FUCK Miller!!

 

[showtime]

Dunk contest last year was pretty good, even though the name players(LeBron, etc.) dont want to show. Im mad they didnt let my boy Felton into the rookie game!! Only Bobcat involved in all-star weekend is Okafor and he's on the Soph team injured list!

 

[xfactor]

Dunk contest last year was pretty good, even though the name players(LeBron, etc.) dont want to show. Im mad they didnt let my boy Felton into the rookie game!! Only Bobcat involved in all-star weekend is Okafor and he's on the Soph team injured list!

You're right... Deron Williams and Nate Robinson should be off the team and Ray Felton (Charlotte) and Jarrett Jack (Portland) should be on it.

 

[xfactor]

Now that ASW is over, I'd like to make a few comments:

Why does the NBA continue to hold a celebrity game and invite people that seemed to have never played basketball in their life?

The rookie/sophomore game sucked. I think there was enough rookie talent this year to go back to the old format when Shick sponsored it and it was a game featuring all rookie talent. Although Igoudala made a statement with his dominant play.

The 3 point contest was weak. Seems like the pure shooter is a dying breed in the NBA. I remember when guys like Craig Hodges would score rounds of 25, 26... Now guys are winning with 19

Shooting stars contest was a time filler.

Skills competition... I was surprised by LeBron getting to the finals. Chris Paul looked like he didnt have a time limit. Hope this isnt foreshadowing for the rest of his season. I wouldnt want to be proved right again.

Dunk contest... Despite what people say about Iggy getting robbed, I was impressed with Nate doing the stand still between the legs windmill more so than him jumping over Spud Webb. His championship was tainted however with Kenny Smith changing up his scorecard along with another judge (forgot which one) to subtract from Iggy's final score to give the title to Nate. The judges shitted on Josh Smith in the first round though. His two hand, double pump from the FT line was easily the 3rd most difficult dunk of the entire contest.

I was impressed with LeBron's play in the 3rd quarter as he helped lead the East to a comeback. Havent really been a big fan of LeBron since he came into the league but he is on his way to being the best player in the NBA if he keeps improving in the next few years. Too bad he wont get it done in Cleveland though as the team doesnt have enough talent. Big Z and Wobe Jr are not the answers.

 

[RunawaySlave]

To me, the whole weekend is filler. None of that shit means
anything. The dunk contest is a joke. I am going to try to find
a 4'11" person with leaping skills, so he can win it next year
The skills competition was some of the DULLEST shit I've ever
watched. I can't imagine paying all that money just to sit and
watch this live


A few other things I noticed in the game:

Watching Dirk Nitwitski hover around the 3-pt line was sad
You almost forget this guy is 7'1" (or 1 inch shorter than Shaq)
He proved that he CLEARLY did not belong in this game as
he was NON existent

The game shifted when Flip put HIS players in the game and
they injected teamwork and defense into the mix

The first half was a joke. If I had paid all that money and travelled
all the way to there to check this game out, I would've been
PISSED. They were basically just shooting jump shots and throwing
alley-oops. I didn't see one dude (outside of Ben Wallace) try to
actually try to block a shot in that half.

After watching the 1990-something all star game (that I mentioned
in a earlier post), it's sad to watch the way the game has changed
so drastically. I've said this before and I'll say it again. The game
lost it's creativity when JORDAN brought all his one on one to the
game...it was evidence in the all star game I mentioned.

The ball was zipping all around the court. There was layups, easy
shots, it was fun watching bball played this way. That is...until
the ball found it's way into Jordan's (or Barkley's) hands. EVERYONE
else would keep the ball moving until the easy shot was found
except these two. Little did I know this was a harbinger of things
to come