The NBA All-Star Weekend, one of the events all NBA fans look forward to throughout the year just happened and there were many things that made this year’s weekend better than years past, such as the fully LED court, enough of that, lets break down the festivities.
The All-Star Game itself- This year’s All-Star Game was super fun, and high scoring. The story for this year’s game was Damian Lillard. He not only one his first All-Star MVP but also won the STARRY Three-Point contest but we will get into that later. Since Dame was traded to the Bucks this offseason, not only has he played better but the Bucks have just been better. Star Giannis Antetokounmpo now has another player of his caliber to play with in Milwaukee to help bring another Championship back to Milwaukee. On top of that, LeBron James suited up for his 20th All-Star Game, which now makes him the leader in All-Star Games selected for and started, He is now ahead of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant. LeBron shows now slow down, he has talked about retirement but he said he will retire once he plays with his son Bronny but he also has said after this season, he doesn’t know if he is gonna retire. He will be 40 at the end of 2024 so who knows, maybe it is time for Bron to retire. But nonetheless, with the new kids on the block and the oldies on the court, this year’s All-Star Game was incredible. The East beat the West with a score of 211 – 186.
STARRY Three-Point Contest- This year’s contest featured three of the best shooters in the game, Damian Lillard, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Trae Young. For those of you wondering, where is Steph Curry, well he competed in his own three-point contest. Damian Lillard walked away with another win which made him the first back-to-back champ since Jason Kapono in 2007 and 2008 along with Larry Bird who actually won the contest three years in a row in 1986, 1987, and 1988. Lillard was the last one to go in the final round of the contest and had to top 24 points. After he missed his first four balls, he then went on a hot streak and shot the last ball which was the money ball to put him on top of his opponents which allowed him to win.
Dunk Contest-This event in my opinion is a hit or miss, this year was just a straight up miss. Although the winner Mac McClung dunked on Shaq, there was just no creativity within the dunks. Don’t get me wrong, people dunking on other players such as their own teammates in cool, but you need to do some more to make the contest better. The dunk contest is broken. I was hoping to see someone dunk on the 7 foot 4 in Spurs rookie, Victor Wembenyama because that seems pretty difficult, but everyone had the same type of dunks this year. The only dunk that was really worth is to me was the one where Mac McCLung took the ball from the person he was dunking on, then tossed it up to himself and then dunked it. That is something that has never been done before which was pretty cool. McClung took home the win this year which also makes him the first back-to-back dunk contest winner since Zach LaVine in 2015 and 2016.
Steph and Sabrina Three-Point Shootout- This event was hands down my favorite event of the whole thing. I had heard of Sabrina Ionescu before but once I heard she was going to do a three-point contest against Steph Curry, I started to watch some of her highlights and she definitely deserved to shoot against Steph. Sabrina shot first and she started off really well. I really thought she had a chance of beating Steph especially with the way he started. Unfortunately, Sabrina lost to Steph by a score of 26-29. But the NBA needs to make this contest more fair. Sabrina was shooting at the NBA line, by her own decision which I get, but there are two sides to the court. Give Steph one side and have him shoot at his distance and then let Sabrina go to the other side and shoot from her distance in the WNBA. She shot from a further distance so because she wants to “push boundries and equal the playing field” which I understand but still, there needs to be a little bit more fairness if these women want a chance at winning. Who knows maybe next year there will be a WNBA vs NBA three-point contest featuring Sabrina Ionescu and Caitlin Clark for the womens side (if Clark decides to go pro) and then have Steph Curry and Damian Lillard represent the NBA side.
But until next year, the NBA All-Star Weekend will have to wait.
