Hello Smash Fans. I hope that you all have had a great day so far. In today’s article, I thought we would talk about the All-Star game. More specifically, I want to talk about the 3 different takeaways that I have from this weekend.
First off, I want to say that I liked this format. I feel as if it could have been condensed a little, but I thought that the dunk contest being at halftime kept people tuned in. I think next year I would like to see the Rising Stars Challenge on Saturday and then place the dunk contest at halftime, that way people tune into the Rising Stars game at least for a little. Then on Sunday, I would have the skills challenge before the All-Star Game, and then having the three-point contest at halftime. This way you will at least retain the majority of viewers through halftime, especially when the game is as lopsided as this one was. This also brings me to my second point. The competitiveness of the past All-Star game was a fluke.
I feel as if last year’s All-Star Game was a perfect storm. Kobe had just died and that had a lot of players motivated to do their best. Not only that, but there a lot of people in the past year’s game who were out to prove themselves to the national audience. Finally, the format being in Kobe’s honor pushed it over the top.
Now, I do think the format is great, and I do believe that it helps competitiveness, but I don’t think that this format will always translate to a competitive game even after the pandemic. I think the frequency of competitive All-Star Games will go up, but I think we will have one more All-Star Game like last year in the next 20 years. If the NBA really wanted to increase the competitiveness of the All-Star Game, they would slash the difference in the first 3 quarters by half that way if a team is up by 30 the game isn’t already decided. To show you what I mean, let’s use the last year as an example.
Going into the fourth quarter, Team LeBron is up 24 points. Now, this is a near-impossible feat to overcome. This would be a legendary comeback for a regular, and Team Durant had to attempt it against a team that is full of players who can get a bucket almost at will. That is a recipe for an uncompetitive 4th quarter. However, if you slash the difference in half then you would have a 12 point game. If you did this, then there would be at least a little more of a competitive edge to the game. However, if you did this, you would have to keep the donation part of the All-Star game in place, otherwise both teams would try even less than they already do through the first 3 quarters. If the NBA implemented the change above, I have no doubt in my mind the NBA All-Star Game would be even more entertaining than it already is
Finally, the NBA needs to fix the dunk contest. Over the last 5 years, it has become harder and harder to find talent for this event and that culminated into what we saw this year. I believe that the NBA can fix the dunk contest by doing the following.
First, the NBA should make the number of contestants 5 or 6. Secondly, I believe they should have on dunk rounds where every round one person is eliminated. Once the contest is to the final three, you start using names. First, you use the name to eliminate the weakest dunker and then to crown the best dunker. In the event of a tie in the earlier rounds, you would have a dunk off between the two players where the judges use names. Additionally, there needs to be a substantial award for the player who wins as well as for the charity of their choice. Furthermore, the NBA needs to make sure they get the judges right. I liked where their heads were at with the former dunked champions, but there also needs to be youth on the panel. People who would have realized that the dunk Obi Toppin did in the first round was a replica of the dunk that Zach LaVine did a week ago. That way we do not have a repeat of what happened in last year’s dunk contest where someone was robbed of the crown.
Thank you Smash Fans for sticking with me until the end. If you want to talk about this topic or any other topic sports-related, please email me or text me using the information on the contact page. If you want to support me even more, please consider subscribing to my blog and YouTube channel as well as following my Spotify for weekly podcasts and articles. Until next time, PD Smash signing off.