Roundball Recap: 2017 NBA All-Star Saturday Night
Saturday night is usually my favorite part of NBA All-Star Weekend. The celeb game and rookie/sophomore game gets the silver medal just because of the ridiculousness of it all and the Kevin Hart cameos (JK, those were the worst things ever). The actual All-Star game gets the bronze because it’s the rookie/sophomore game with less dunking and more of a “fuck you, I’m trying less. No I’M TRYING LESS” vibe to it. But Saturday night was always my fav. I would load up on snacks, Sprite (the old dunk contest sponsor because I’m a loyal NBA fan and love sugar water), and watch the contests as far away from any girl in school that knew I was alive, let alone potentially be interested in me.
I was also hoping with this year’s NBA All-Star Weekend being in New Orleans the same time as the first weekend of Mardi Gras parades, we would have a night similar to the year the NBA All-Star Game was in Vegas. Pure chaos and debauchery. I was on Twitter all night waiting for news to break of something outrageous to happen. But even that was a bust.
As always I recommend some Roundball Rock AKA the NBA on NBC song for your listening pleasure during these roundball recap blogs.
However since last night’s dunk contest was such a disappointment, I recommend the markedly worse old NBA on ESPN song from the mid-2000s. We can’t sully Roundball Rock for that trash.
The best thing I saw during the day was Floyd Mayweather marking his territory like a dog pissing everywhere with TMT signs.
The worst thing I saw was the dancing mom trying to bleed every second out of that 15 minutes of fame. Even Chewbacca Mask Mom is rolling her eyes at this old coot. Her dance moves are more played out than Barstool Meatloaf blogs.
At least things don’t see awkward between Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
Advertisement
Anyway, the actual basketball events got off to a pretty hot start when Kristaps Porzingis was officially crowned the most skilled player in the NBA, mayyyybe even NBA history if you believe in the evolution of the game.
I blogged about the win in detail, since all things considered it was probably the most important thing that happened. 3-Point Contest and Dunk Contest winners get remembered. But Skill Competition winners never die. A huge night for Kristaps, Latvia, and fans of the roaring dumpster fire that resides on 33rd and 7th.
(It’s funny because it’s kinda true. It’s also extremely sad because it’s kinda true).
The 3-Point contest was just like any other 3-Point contest. Kinda fun I guess but not really fun at all. The highlight came before it started and Kevin Durant was announced as OKC’s own:
As for the contest Kyrie tried his best in OT to take home the trophy and have a platform to speak out for all the flat-Earth truthers out there.
Advertisement
But Eric Gordon got hot enough and stayed healthy long enough to take the title.
TL;DW = Steph Curry didn’t participate, Klay didn’t get so hot he burst into a fireball at any point or even make it past the first round.
Still the best 3-Point Contest moment ever:
TNT probably knew that the 3-Point contest would disappoint and figured what’s better than raising money for an awesome charity like the Sager Strong Foundation. Only problem was instead of recruiting some of the best shooters in NBA history, they got a few NBA shooters and then a hodge podge of celebs to basically take money out of the foundations pocket.
Advertisement
But no worries, Steph Curry saved the day by hitting a halfcourt shot worth half a million dollars!
JK, he missed a kabillion shots in a row.
Which led to Twitter being littered with “Where’s LaMelo Ball when you need him?” jokes. Little did we know LaMelo’s dad was out there saying that Lonzo Ball is basically already a better player than Steph Curry is.
Okay, I think we’ve reached the peak of the Steph Curry disrespect movement. Jesus Christ. For the record, Steph Curry led a bum ass Davidson team to the Elite Eight that lost by 2 to a MUCH superior Kansas team as a lanky sophomore that wasn’t yet shooting like a video game character. He’s a little better in 2017.
Anyway, Craig Sager’s son ended up scoring the $500,000 shot with an assistance from Shaq and everyone was happy.
And Ernie Johnson cracked during the check ceremony and simultaneously made it dusty in millions of homes around the world.
Then since TNT wanted to bleed some more commercial breaks out of us, they gave us a DJ Khaled concert.
While I hated having to wait longer for the dunk contest, you are a huge asshole if you don’t like or at least enjoy laughing at DJ Khaled. In the words of KFC, he is the Winnie The Pooh of rap. Just a big, dopey but still lovable son of a bitch. If you told me that Khaled was really a 12 year old that made a wish to turn big and grew into a man overnight like in the movie Big, I would believe you.
Finally we got to the main event. The Dunk Contest. Could it live up to the hype following last year’s epic duel between Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon?!?
(Short answer: Fuck no)
Maybe it’s because our expectations were set too high. Or maybe it’s because EVERY PERSON USED A PROP TO JUMP OVER OR ASSIST THEM.
Okay that last one was pretty cool. But I still legitimately wished that every player would have a mishap and lead to a horrible accident. Whether it was DeAndre crushing Khaled, Derrick Jones knocking people down like dominoes, or Aaron Gordon almost losing a digit to a drone like Hank. I’m not sure if that makes me a fed up NBA fan, a curmudgeon or just cranky because it was past my bedtime.
However the DeAndre dunk was pretty awesome when you saw it from DJ Khaled’s angle on his Snapchat.
Paul Pierce was loving it so much he had two phones out to capture all the action.
PP must have one phone for calls or texting and another one just for fire “emoji” tweets.
Pierce still doesn’t have shit on Wheeling and Dealing Joe Dumars though.
All things considered, the view behind Devin Booker was the best part of the entire dunk contest.
Alright this was a incredible dunk by Derrick Jones Jr.
Not being able to complete a dunk in the finals, not so incredible.
Glenn Robinson won basically by default since Derrick Jones Jr. choked in the finals.
And Aaron Gordon was so bad he got eliminated in the first round and was upstaged by this kid.
When you realize that almost all of Robinson’s dunks were the same and he still mopped the floor with the field.
And that Jimmer upstaged the entire night from the other side of the planet.
How many more buckets does he need to get in order for him to be back in the NBA?
On the bright side, we will now have to hear about how the dunk contest is dead, needs to be fixed, and a million other hot takes over the next year. Really loved hearing all that nonsense! Anyway, I guess it’s back to reminiscing on years of dunk contest’s past until Zion Williamson is in The Association.
But in the meantime, lets relive the glory years of the dunk contest.