Monday, February 18, 2008

All-Star Gazing

Some random thoughts about All-Star weekend:

  • The Rookie game was not as exciting this year. Normally zero defense leads to a lot of interesting dunk attempts, but this time it was Boobie Gibson launching 20 3-pointers. I was booing, not Boo-bie-ing. At least Farmar was aggressive and played with energy.

  • An interesting reason why the Sophomores always win: at this point most rookies are exhausted because they haven't learned yet how to run the full marathon of an NBA season. Play this game early in the year and it would be a lot closer.

  • Last year's rookies who didn't make the sophomore cut: Randy Foye, Adam Morrison, Marcus Williams. New sophomores who took their spots: LaMarcus Aldridge, Ronnie Brewer, Rajan Rondo. Enjoy your reflected glory, Rondo, because if you were on a bad team no one would know your name. And Adam Morrison... why does that name sound familiar? Is he in the NBA?

  • This just in: Shooting Stars is still poorly designed (spend half your time shooting 5 shots and the rest shooting a half-court shot), and still a complete waste of time.

  • The better event was the half-court shooting contests at the end of the practice sessions. J-Kidd hit three in 60 seconds shooting one-handed underhand lobs. I have no idea why Sheed didn't participate, because my money would be on him. I was also surprised that Kobe didn't insist on participating left-handed.

  • The best moment from the practice sessions was overhearing Laker4Life Byron Scott tell Kobe, "You're stealing my glory!" because he finally gets to coach his "main man" but instead he pulls up injured. Obviously Byron was Kobe's mentor way back when, and you can feel the love. We need to make sure this guy is coaching the Lakers post-Phil.

  • The 3-point contest is so boring that thankfully Charles and Kenny talked about something else entirely during most of it.

  • My favorite dunk was Howard's 1st in the finals: block off the backboard with his left to create a follow up dunk with his right. But then again, I couldn't stop smiling during replays of the Birthday Cake dunk. Howard's first dunk is right up there... his head was behind the backboard! That ain't right.

  • It's early, so I haven't read any news articles about the game yet. I hope someone points out how utterly retarded those uniforms were. I mean, whose brilliant idea was it to have different colors front and back to begin with, let alone having the East back and the West front almost identical? As guys move around you see three different colors on the court... or during a fast break you might only see one. What the hell?!?

  • Only somewhat on display, much less restrained than I expected: the presentation of New Orleans as a city of hapless victims whose continuing problems are a direct result of the greed, racism, and selfishness of the rest of America. Hey, Bob from Cheyenne, why do you hate black people so much that you don't come down here and spend your time and money rebuilding these people's houses? Or demanding that the Feds spend your money doing so on your behalf? What do you mean other areas were hit much harder by Katrina and seem to be rebuilding just fine?

  • I thought it was pretty funny that Reggie Miller advocated Ray Allen as the clear MVP... do nothing all game then hit some key 3s late. Sounds like Reggie ball. They gave it to the right guy (Lebron) instead -- who by the way absolutely demolished Amare on the game-clinching drive and dunk.

  • No Kobe, no win. Simple as that. Take heed Team USA -- we better hope he's available for the Olympics.

1 comment:

samuellemons said...

Yes! B.Scott needs to be the future of the Lakers. I wonder if Phil will try to coach the next few chasing that 10th ring. I know I would.