All-Star Changes

                                   Yes, we are your All-Star Drunks!!!!

What's up my peeps!!! It is All Star weekend and because of that I have an All Star Hangover. I went with a solid buzz for most of the day and then shot towards the major stumbles for the rest of the night. My hangover is brought to you by thanks to my big brother's 35th Birthday party. My brother already got his birthday present when Kyle Williams muffed two punts to allow the Giants to win the NFC Championship game and the Super Bowl, proving that good things happen to bad people. My Hangover is also sponsored by the fact that I cannot catch an upset break. Duke and Kentucky played around with the competition for much of the game, much like Kim Kardashian plays around with the idea of being married, before emerging victorious, or in Kim's case a sad, pathetic person who will always be alone. I can smile at that can't I? 

Anyway, in this edition of the Sunday Hangover I am going to help the NBA, free of charge (though if they want to play me then I'm not saying no) on how to make the All-Star game and All-Star weekend, in general, to be more compelling and interesting as the best All-Star game we have in the all of major pro sports. Lets roll!!!


All Star Weekend Changes
The NBA All-Star game is far and away the best of the All-Star games that America has to offer. Hockey would be second, that is, if most of the population enjoyed Hockey that wasn't designated The Winter Classic or a Playoff game. Hell, ever year the NHL All-Star game comes and goes and I didn't even know it was on or when it was scheduled to be played. The NBA, on the other hand, conducts itself much like a suburban mall in moving the Christmas setting out and bringing in the Easter Bunny theme into the mall three days later without missing a beat. You have to promote if you want to be big time.

The MLB has made a sham of their game by making it count towards home field advantage. An overreaction to the extra inning tie game in Milwaukee a few years back. If the game is going to matter that much then how do the best players not play the full game? Has the product become better for the MLB All-Star game since the inception of that rule, or has it remained the same in that managers still play players for two innings and keep pitchers to very reduced pitch counts. An All Star game should never be played with stakes so high. Just think if the Rangers would have had home field advantage last year, as they should have because of a better record, game 6 and 7 would have turned out differently. The crowd and playing at your place matters.

The Pro Bowl should be done away with completely. Nobody wants to see men with pads on playing touch football. It is ridiculous and a waste of time for the players and the fans. Rather than play that sham of a game, just replace that game with the Lingerie Bowl championship game. Isn't that the same thing in essence, but hotter and more enjoyable? I know I'm tuning in for that.

With all that being said it is clear the NBA All-Star game is the best All-Star weekend. Yet, it still sucks. Why? It just isn't exciting or innovative as it was back in the 70's and 80's when the dunk competition and the All-Star game were fresh and fun must watch TV. The game for the first 44 minutes is just sloppy plays littered with  Lob City, which is fine if you are a fan of the And1 mixtape. However, for us other NBA fans the sprinkle of great plays does not make up for the fact the fans only see 4 minutes of both teams playing hard, elevating their games to the point where we see some genuinely good basketball on display. Many people have made suggestions on how to improve the game. My solution has nothing to do with the game. The game is what it is and that is a display of athleticism, creativeness, and sloppiness, that is more Globetrotter fun than anything. My suggestions have to do with the pre-game festivities of the skills competition, the slam dunk contest, and the the rookie/sophomore game being scratched or tweaked to get the fans more excited about the main event of the All-Star game..

When you go to a sporting event isn't it the tailgating before the game that creates the atmosphere for fun and excite me for the fans? The tailgate is having fun with your friends, having some road soda's, and arguing over the most inane topic like an episode of Seinfeld. It is the moments leading up to the main event that gets people excited and jacked up to head into the game and watch the excitement unfold. That is what why the NBA needs to make the first two days of All-Star weekend the tailgate towards the main event. Get the hardcore fans and the causal NBA fans excited to watch the game on Sunday and by doing that you have to add a little excitement with these additions to the weekend.


2 on 2 tournament 
Yep, let NBA Jams promote and sponsor the first event of the weekend. I say the NBA create a trophy and put up a 10 million dollar purse to the winner of this event. Make the trophy like the Stanley cup with the winners name on it for every year and see which two teammates want to start a dynasty out of that competition. The thought of ten million dollars to split between two players would make for a better, more intriguing Whit Men Can't Jump King and Duck game. Who needs a skills competition when two on two pick and roll is the biggest skills game an NBA player has to offer up. Think about the possibilities for a second. You can have New York with Lin and Melo, a team that may struggle and then Melo gets hurt, which leads to Lin picking up Amare and the Knicks two-some begin to roll as the Knicks fans openly wish for a Carmelo trade to start the 2nd half of the season. You would have LeBron and Wade storming out to early leads only to see those leads evaporate as the two try to figure out who takes the last shot of the game. You would have Dwight Howard continually substituting his teammates after every errant pass, shot, and miscue before he decides to stop playing until he can be traded to land a better teammate. You will have Durant cruising along in the game before Westbrook becomes jealous and begins to fling up terrible shots in an attempt to get people to notice him. Kobe will team up with Bynum, but during the games will try to make a trade for Howard that David Stern will allow, but then rescind two games into the Kobe/Howard pairing. The best moments will be when the combo of John Wall and Javale Mcgee are not allowed in the contest, their spots being forfeited to Kentucky's Anthony Davis and Michale Kidd-Glichrist because the NBA wants a more cohesive group to play in the game. Then the Bobcats duo (God, I can't figure out who the Bobcats would even send) are replaced with Baylor's Britney Greiner and a teammate of her choice. The NBA, citing name recognition and talent as reasons the Bobcats are denied entrance into the tournament. The two on two tournament ends when Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins' eats the basketball, rather than pass it to an open Tyreke Evans.


Slam Dunk Competition
The Slam Dunk Competition died years ago and NBA has just been to obtuse and blind to figure out a new alternative to force down our throats. Hey, all the dunks have been done before and the dunk contest has been relegated to a prop show. You have to scrap the Dunk Contest as it is in its current format of rounds and scoring. Why not make the Dunk Contest, embedded into the All-Star game itself. The best dunks of the tear so far have been Blake Griffin's dunk on Kendrick Perkins and LeBron's dunk when he jumped over John Lucas for the alley-oop slam. What do both of those dunks have in common? They both were in game and both by two guys who are not in the Slam Dunk competition.

The All-Star game features the best dunkers in the game and the All-Star game is chalk full of highlight reel dunks. Since the best dunkers pass on the dunk competition, why not just forcibly have them in the competition by making the in-game dunks what the fans can vote on as Best Dunk of the Night, which awards that person the Dunk Contest trophy. That way the dunk is creative, on the fly, in the moment action that is not rehearsed or choreographed beforehand, which is what a great dunk is all about. Plus, you get the best of the best for dunkers doing something they were already going to do in the game, but now the dunks will be ratcheted up a bit because their is something on the line. It's refreshing, it's involving the fans and meven more fans that will tune in to participate with the voting, and it provides the instinctual athleticism of the top NBA dunkers. So what if they blow a few going for the gusto, its better than sitting through Chase Buddinger, Derrick Williams, and two other guys that if they dunked on me at the park right now I still would not know who they are chasing down there errant dunk attempts. Instead, give me the real All-Star dunkers. Because the days of mano y mano dunk contests are way behind us. I am giving you gold out here, Jerry. Gold.


The Snubs Game 
Another event to scrap is the Rookie/Sophomore game, Chuck/Shaq game, or whatever it is going to be in the future. How about play the NBA Snub Game. Take the good players from bad teams (i.e. Andrea Bargnani, Kyrie Irving, Kyle Lowry, and anyone from the Warriors) who do not get to play and have them play the JV game on Friday night for a chance to play in the All-Star game on Sunday night. But instead of them playing five on five, let us break it down to one on one. Why play a five on five game with guys who will either be unmotivated or take terrible shots and make horrible plays to try and get into the game. No, the best way to get the best out of an NBA player is to give him the ball in an isolated situation, with no one to pass the ball to, and let him try to score. In front of millions of people watching these NBA players do not want to be embarrassed, unless you are Martell Webster or a Charlotte Bobcat, and will play your butt off in a game to 7 by ones and two's, winner's outs, and a player has to clear it above the three. Pretty standard rules.

It would be a Karate Kid All Valley type of competition that would allow the teams that do not have a single All-Star (Warriors for the last 17 years) or players that was clearly snubbed by the coaches. The format will be by conference with the West playing the West and the East playing the East with the winner of those two brackets getting to play the championship one on one belt, not trophy, but belt and the winner of the game will be added to their conference's roster for Sunday's All-Star game. I would love to see NBA players play one on one to see who could make it out of their respective conferences and which players tank and meltdown in the process. It would be a huge ego boost to some and a huge blow to the ego of some, say like when Josh SMith loses to Ryan Anderson because Anderson just lets Smith take open jump shots that clank all day long and Anderson chases the ball down and cooly hits three's for two's all game long or when Tyreke Evans continually tries to plow into the lane on drives, but DeAndre Jordan and his wingspan continue to stuff him throughout the game. How about in the Finals when Jeremy Lin, having barely escaped the Cobra Kai of the Eastern Conference, takes on Danilo Gallinari, aka Johhny Lawrence, and crane kicks a three for the win. Wait, can I say all that or will I be fired by the AC bosses for comparing Lin to the Karate Kid. I'll take my chances and leave it in there.

There you have it. Lin is in the All-Star game making it more relevant and giving ESPN more over coverage of the Linsanity. You are all welcome.

Note- I will be in Chicago on Wednesday-Saturday so if anyone has recommendations on food stops or drinking spots to go to on my journey around the city send me a reply or hit me up on twitter @cuenster22. I'll be chronicling my journey through the windy city and making a stop at my own personal Mecca of basketball- Jordan's statue. Let me know any other recommendations you may have for Chi-town. Appreciate it.