NBA All-Star Weekend is a Flimsy, Sprawling, Useless Mess

Friday, February 13, 2015

Andrew R Tonry, GoLocalPDX Contributor

The NBA's All-Star Weekend is such a sprawling mess it's now bleeding into the regular season.

The value-less festivities of popularity and flimsy glitz began weeks ago, with Damian Lillard's being left off initial roster as selected by the coaches. One could even argue the news affected his play.

It only got uglier when, as a replacement for the injured Kobe Bryant, NBA commissioner Adam Silver selected the mercurial, sullen DeMarcus Cousins instead of Lillard.

Silver's pick underscored that there is absolutely no agreed-upon criteria for selecting an All-Star. Presumably, Cousins was chosen for his personal statistics, which are good--just as long as the most important metric, wins and losses, is struck from the record.

Cousins is the leader--if you want to call him that--of the hapless, 18-34 Kings. So clearly winning doesn't matter. Except when it does. The Atlanta Hawks, who have the best record in the league, were rewarded with four All-Stars, none of whom post star-like individual numbers. Unlike Cousins, though, the Hawks appear to be good teammates. Atlanta's calling card is working hard. Cousins, though, has been better known lately for, well, not really working at all:

So Lillard gets passed over for a sullen loser, but is granted a measure of reprieve when Blake Griffin withdraws with an elbow injury. What a weird position it puts Lillard in, being passed over more than once, then finally let through the door with a shrug.

It's like, imagine you had a crush on somebody but they kissed everyone else first, and only once they'd had their heart stepped on did they call you back.

Pride aside, Lillard had little choice but to accept the belated, wrinkled, soggy invitation. Showing up makes too much sense for his pocketbook and legacy--years from now, when Lillard is an eight-time All-Star no one will remember how one of those selections was a little flukey.

But the rash of injuries have only underscored another of the NBA's stubborn trappings: the 82 game season is wearing everyone out.

For God's sake, after Griffin went down so too did the 21-year-old phenom Anthony Davis. That's three players in the West, along with Dwayne Wade in the East, plus a number of others who might as well have made it--like DeMarr Derozen and Bradley Beal--had their seasons not already been shortened by injury.

The great irony of the All-Star nod is that it robs the NBA's top talents of rest and recovery time.

Surely Lillard and LaMarcus Aldirdge, to name just the locals, could use a little more down time to recharge for the playoff push.

Instead they'll take a pair of cross-country flights and fill a few busy days with media obligations, and perhaps a few parties in the City that Never Sleeps. Honestly, I wouldn't begrudge any Blazer fan who'd rather the team fielded no All-Stars simply so in exchange for extra rest.

For the first time, the NBA seems to be at least acknowledging the absurdity of this situation by extending the length of the break by a few days after the weekend's festivities.

It's a drop in the bucket, though. More and more, as NBA teams realize the virtues of resting key players in certain situations like back-to-backs, the product on-court is diminished.

Speaking of flimsy products, All-Star weekend has become wholly disposable. Without motivation, Sunday's game is a waste of time. (To add such motivation, I propose the losing conference must wear short-shorts the next year, scaring image-conscious players into competing.) Saturday is a mess too.

The consensus this year is that the three-point contest will be better than the dunk contest. While it's true that the competition in the shoot-out is as strong as it's ever been, watching guys shoot unguarded set shots should not--and never will be--more exciting than watching top flight aerialists creatively soar and explosively finish.

The fault for the shrinking dunk contest is dished by two spoons. The big spoon goes to star players, like LeBron James, who refuse to compete because they're worried about being embarrassed.

The slightly smaller spoon goes to the contest's format, which changes every year, and is completely corrupted by fan voting.

Isn't that the allure of sports, that results aren't beholden to popularity?

But I guess that's All-Star Weekend in a nutshell.