All-Star Weekend Blahs and the Rest of the Season
So, is there any way I could get my weekend back? I spent Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday watching a faint shadow of what used to be the coolest part of the NBA. I am referring to the All-star weekend. I used to love watching it. There were cool activities, great dunks, 3-point sharpshooters, and the all-star game. All that stuff is still there, but when it is padded with hours of nonsense and bad music…maybe I’m getting old. Getting Mad? Agreeing? Disagreeing? Read on to comment about it and to see what else is going on down on Trade Street.
Yeah, my personal opinion of All-Star weekend was a simple one. It sucked. Did you watch the “Rising Stars” game? There wasn’t much defense. Lots of dunks, fast breaks, and no defense summed that mess up. Poor Gilchrist looked like a lost dog on the court. A defensive minded player in a game geared to show the amazing offensive level of these athletes…yeah…not real impressive. Kemba knew how to share the ball, but again…neither of our guys stood out at all. They were just there, showing off our Bobcats jerseys. The one thing that the fans did like was the 1-on-1 challenge that took place during the game. Kyrie Irving proved that in the “Rising Stars” game. Unfortunately, that was a 5 minute span that was swallowed whole by the rest of the weekend. It was a wet match in a dark cave for avid NBA fans…at least this fan. Muggsy Bogues, a favorite basketball player of mine from the past was to compete in the shooting stars skills challenge. I saw him for roughly 4 minutes. He got to hit a jumper, had to lob a 3-pointer (something he never used to shoot), then lob half-court shots. All of this was timed. He nailed the jumper, took him 2 tries to nail the 3, then the group he was on took forever to hit the half-court shot. I really expected him to have to do more, but that was it. The point guard skills challenge…meh…one participant missed his layup. Yeah, I’m not naming his name because he knows who he is. The dunk contest…whatever. Make the first dunk or get deeply penalized. Not in this all-star day and age does that happen… Try again, try 2 times…try 10 times…he got it! 49 points awarded out of a possible 50. Reward them for meh. 3-point contest you say? Let them shoot one at a time, not head-to-head so we can focus on the one guy shooting. Boring.
I’m stopping before I give myself a heart attack. The East versus West theme sucked as well. Fans want Kobe versus Lebron. They want to see Howard versus Unibrow. They wouldn’t even mind seeing Duncan versus anyone...Brook Lopez versus Blake Griffin, but I digress. Charles Barkley and I shared the same opinion on the weekend. There needed to be less entertainment and more actual basketball. All of the challenges need to be performed by the all-stars that were selected for the weekend. It does NOT need to include guys in the dunk contest that no one knows. It makes for a boring weekend. The thoughts on the dunks are more elaborate than what can be performed in 1 try, and the result is waiting forever for the dunk that has lost its surprise factor to finally go down, and then no points are deducted for the misses. OK…I’m stopping on the All-Star Slam.
Bobcats Basketball news…
Well
We play again tonight. We have until Friday to trade Ben Gordon if the deal is right. If we can’t get something reasonable, I would fully expect him to be a Bobcat on 2/23. He has a player option for next season, so perhaps if he hates it so bad, he’ll forego it and we can net an extra $12mil towards a free agent this summer. Time will tell though. There really haven’t been many rumors floating around in terms of moving Gordon other than a swap for Humphries or Bargnani. In both cases, either Gordon doesn’t fit on their team, or they don’t fit on our team. Most attention is focused on players like Josh Smith, Dwight Howard, and the like. If we make a move, I would almost bet that it is a small one that is a 3rd party in a larger trade. We throw in a player on an expiring to make a trade work, and we get something small and a pick. It’s really hard to tell because the Bobcats and trades are always very quiet. The cards are held close, and at the last second, you get the full hand. All we can do now is hurry up and wait.
Tune in tonight and watch the Bobcats take on the Magic in Orlando. Maybe we can start the second half of the season as strong as we did the first half, and wind up with a pretty decent record. We might even be able to make playoffs…
I said maybe.
