Welcome to Deadspin’s The Sports Nihilist, where all is for naught, and we are but accidental jolts of electrified meat stuck to the surface of a rock in an indifferent universe.
There have been as many takedowns of NBA All-Star Weekend as there were points in the All-Star Game. Everyone has a fix, a solution, or a diatribe over how disgusting it was to watch the best basketball players on the planet obliterate the game’s point total. It would take your average Y-league team four games to accumulate 397 points, and these guys did it in 48 minutes.
What’s not to like?
This was essentially a Harlem Globetrotters showcase but both teams had a handshake deal to play Washington Generals (Wizards?) level defense. Do you know how many people show up just to watch Steph Curry heave half-court shots, and fire from the tunnel in warmups? Millions!
The game literally does not matter. It means nothing, like life, so Kendrick Perkins and Austin Rivers can shout about it being an insult to the game of basketball, but those two dopes wouldn’t know because they never appeared in one. It’s an affront to exhibitions everywhere not to put on a show. Luka Doncic failing to self-oop? Damian Lillard winning another superfluous MVP award? Throw down a dunk, give a nod to the crowd, and pull up a chair.
No amount of money will motivate a bunch of entrepreneurs to jeopardize their main revenue stream, so NBA players valuing their careers over a fake game tracks. They actively sit out games of consequence to preserve their moneymakers. Why in the name of Zeus’ butthole would they risk so much as a hangnail in an exhibition?
Adam Silver isn’t the puppet master, he’s the marionette.
“And to the Eastern Conference All-Stars, you scored the most points,” Silver said during the trophy ceremony. “Well … congratulations.”
What’s the plan here, Adam? Death by a million passive-aggressive jabs? Unless the prize money is enough to put Bronny VII through college, this will always be a scoring extravaganza, and I hope it stays the course. Add a 10-point line, raise the rims, lower the rims, I’m talking a full-out MTV Rock N’ Jock experience.
The LED court has so much potential for power-ups and boosters, and these morons are clamoring for defense? How about spectacle instead? If Silver enacts one rule change, let it be that, henceforth, the All-Star point total record must be reset every year. Make them score the equivalent of a case of cigarettes and see how much they like smoking after that.
Hell, incorporate the Dunk and Three-Point contests during the game. I mean that’s the only way you’ll get All-Stars in the dunk contest. Isn’t that what these events are about? Fake records, sham awards, feats of athleticism and shooting, zero defense.
They already let guys dunk and shoot unimpeded, so why should the game itself be any different? F*cking hypocrites, man.
Get rid of the clock and go back to the Elam Ending, but set the winning point total at 350. You want to shoot practice jumpers? It’s not over until one team makes 100 threes, and 25 dunks. Give Karl-Anthony Towns a real shot to break Wilt Chamberlain’s single-game scoring mark AT ALL-STAR WEEKEND. You know that’s the destiny he always wanted.
As for the destiny of the All-Star Game, the quality — or point total — can only go up from here. Let it be the latter.
