NBA All Star Saturday Night Roundup

After a pretty good Friday night with the Celebrity Game and the Rising Stars challenge both being better than I anticipated I was excited for Saturday night. Finally the fun events had arrived. Would another big man win the Skills Competition? Who would beat Klay in the three point shootout? Would the Dunk Contest be saved? All valid questions. Let’s see what happened

NBA Skills Competition

I learned an early lesson in this one. Don’t blow your load after the passing stage. That one’s on me

In reality Horford blew his early lead (imagine that!) and missed all of his 3PA

I had a feeling going in that Baby Dirk would be a sneaky darkhorse, and he did not disappoint

and the next thing you knew it was a Baby Dirk vs Spencer Dinwiddie final. You know Dinwiddie, the guy who started the year in the G-League and now is about to get a big time contract this summer. Good for him and his win was relatively easy

3PT Competition 

I know many prefer the Dunk Contest, but this is always my favorite event of the night. Nothing like seeing a dude get hot and go on a run of like two straight racks. Scores were relatively low in the early rounds, no crazy 20+ score or anything of that nature. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t drama, as Klay was ruthless in how he eliminated Wayne Ellington

Personally I had Booker in the blog, so I loved how he looked early

Then once in the Finals, his performance was historic

and he needed every basket, because Klay came out and put up 25 of his own

Dunk Contest

Call me crazy, but I felt like this year was a little too much tribute and not enough new creativity. I get Larry Nance Jr honoring his Dad who won, but overall I would say this did not save the Dunk Contest. After experiencing LaVine vs Gordon I’m not sure how you could think otherwise. With that said, there were some impressive individual dunks, like how things started with Mitchell’s first dunk

Often times when guys bring in a second hoop as a prop things don’t go so hot, but I thought this dunk was a good start. Personally I thought Dennis Smith Jr had one of if not the best dunk of the night with this attempt

and I don’t think I’m alone. That was crazy the way he’s able to stay in the air that long and the control to pull it off. Bravo. Now this was a tribute dunk in my opinion, and while I did like it and thought Nance Jr executed it well, we’d seen it before

This is where the Dunk Contest got a little weird. This is not a 50. I’m sorry but it’s not

especially considering he missed earlier, can’t give someone a perfect score there in my opinion. If you want to talk about creativity, then look no further than Larry Nance Jr’s next dunk in the finals

Just a little self pass double tap alley oop no big deal. A dunk that once you saw the replay in slow motion you really saw how nuts it was. This was a dunk that in prior years may not warrant a 50, but definitely was 50 worthy in this competition.

Which brings us to the final dunk, the dunk that won Mitchell the trophy. There were leaks on Twitter of this jersey in his locker prior to the start so you knew something like this was coming, and I thought Mitchell pulled it off pretty well

And with that dunk, Larry Nance Jr was defeated and Donovan Mitchell’s dream rookie season continues. Again, I would have preferred more originality and probably would have enjoyed a Mitchell vs Smith Jr finals more.

All in all an entertaining Saturday night as now all the focus turns to the game tomorrow.