NBA All Star Weekend preview - Part 1

So the belated All Star weekend is finally upon us. While a majority of these events have historically sucked, every once in awhile something worth while comes out of the weekend and reenergizes the NBA fan base for the second half of the season.

Some interesting changes have taken place this year – some good, some not so good. First up is the Sprint All-Star Celebrity Game.

Sprint All-Star Celebrity Game

First of all, Sprint is the third largest wireless telecommunications provider in the US and had an operating income of $108 million last year. The celebrity game is the best thing you can spend your sponsorship budget on, really? How many people actually watch this piece of crap? Even when some teen heartthrob with an army of screaming tweens is playing in the game, viewership bumps up to what, a couple thousand? For fuck’s sake can’t we just put this one to bed and replace it with something people will actually want to watch, like an actual “Hoop it Up” style 3-on-3 tournament of NBA players or a playground-vs-NBA 1-on-1 tournament?

With that out of the way, this year’s lineups include a few players from back in the day, including the 46-year old Mitch Richmond and the 40-year old Penny Hardaway. Notice how I placed their ages before their names? Its to emphasize that these guys are FUCKING OLD. Penny could barely play five years ago in Miami, how much do you think he’s going to show us this year? Why not just invite Robert Parrish or Bill Walton or Bill Russell to play? Yeah, I can’t wait to tune in and watch Penny and Mitch hoist up a shitload of 3s over the heads of Ne-Yo and Vinny from Jersey Shore. FML.

*Thinking about the legends though, an intriguing idea is a Legends game. I grew up in Kansas and went to the University of Kansas. Growing up, you would hear of private pickup games between former players and coaches and word on the street was that these games became pretty intense at times. I’m pretty sure these types of games exist at all major basketball universities and it leads to the idea that old players retain that fiery drive to win. Would Kermit Washington punch Rudy T in a game 35 years after the initial incident? Only one way to find out.

I think this video proves my point.