Written Spring 2020 during Introduction to Sportswriting with Mike Wells
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Going in to last weekend’s NBA All-Star Game there was a great deal of uncertainty for the event. After announcing sweeping rule changes to the game format, many were skeptical.
Some, like Charles Barkley were downright critical.
“"It’s a very fine line between strange and stupid. I’m on stupid," Barkley told The USA Today when asked about the changes going into the weekend.
He said later in that interview with Mark Medina, that the NBA has the best all-star festivities of all the pro leagues and while the players could play harder, he did not want them trying to kill each other or get hurt in doing so.
Totally fair point about injury by Barkley; no fans, coaches or GMs want to see their all-stars go down in the exhibition game.
However, passively saying players “could” play harder, something on-brand for Barkley’s own playing career, but not demanding better effort is what has left the NBA All-Star game in purgatory much of this decade.
Sure, Barkley may be right, after taking into account the rising stars, skills contest, 3-point shootout and dunk contest there certainly is not another pro league coming close at the diversity of entertainment the NBA’s provides.
But it is hard for NBA fans to not feel like the most talented basketball players on the world are short-changing them year-in year-out with matador defense, no-look lobs thrown awry, and a blowout final results nearing 200 points.
That is not exciting basketball. It is not what a weekend made for the fans should be.
Add on to that, the past few years the NBA’s struggles to select tantalizing dunk personalities. And suddenly the NBA was stuck. Arguably, the two best events were the Rising Stars Challenge, a game also without much resemblance to actual basketball, and 3-point contest, which is electric but some years difficult to showcase the best personalities to fans (sorry, Joe Harris, Davis Bertans and Marco Bellinelli).
These were all fun gimmicks, but not worth a ticket when not each event can deliver on NBA fans’ thirst for great basketball.
But alas, Adam Silver, with help from Chris Paul re-tooled the game format and seemed to move the All-Star Game forward for decades to come.
To be fair, the change did not scream success immediately. The majority of the first three quarters featured a style of play more similar to a local grade-school rec league, with little defense, poor passing and minimal offensive motion.
However, after three separate quarters swung back and forth fans were given the score totals the teams would be playing from in the new Elam Ending 4th quarter, an ending that would set a point total to hit in order to win.
Going into the fourth, Team Giannis led Lebron’s 133-124. Each side had won a quarter outright for local Chicago charities before tying in the third. Setting up a doubled pot for the fourth under the new ending. The new ending called for a target score to be determined by added Kobe’s “24” to the higher score of the two teams. One-hundred and thirty-three with the 24 on top meant the Team Lebron and Giannis’ race to 157 was set.
What ensured was one of the best fourth quarters of an All-Star game in the event’s history, even the NBA’s crankiest owner agreed.
“That fourth quarter was incredible,” Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told the Teddy Greenstein, of the Chicago Tribune. “I don’t even know that you can call it a quarter. There was the final countdown!”
The Greek Freak and Lebron working one another on either end, Kyle Lowry and Chris Paul’s veteran savvy winning them the crunch-time minutes over young guns like Luka Doncic and Trae Young and a game that burned down the last possible points with Team Lebron squeaking past Giannis’ 157-155 on Anthony Davis’ game-winning free throw.
Sunday gave the fans the All-Star game they deserve.
Sunday carried a bit of romanticism too. Going beyond the product of the court to help heal fans, coaches and players all still in mourning.
It was almost poetic that commissioner Silver’s work alongside NBA President, Chris Paul for a bipartisan rule change proved successful in a move reminiscent of forward-thinking and pragmatic commissioner David Stern.
And then on the court, when the fourth quarter rolled around, the no-holds-barred display of competitive fight was nothing short of what Kobe and Gigi Bryant, honored on Lebron and Giannis’ team jerseys respectively, would have hoped for from the best on the planet wearing their numbers.
Overall, the NBA All-Star Game still had some flaws. The judging snafu in the dunk contest, and a rising stars challenge with little competitive fire are going to be areas to improve and of course the fact that it was won on a free throw. But in the end, Silver took a risk and changed it up, and by doing so brought glory back to All-Star Weekend for players and fans alike during a successful and therapeutic weekend of hoops in Chicago.
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