All-Star Recap: It’s an Improvement? I Think?

On Sunday, the NBA played its yearly All-Star game. This time, with a completely new setup

In the past, the NBA All-Star game was an opportunity for the best of the best to get together and enjoy the honor of being recognized as not just one of the world’s 500 best but as one of the universe’s top 20 players. It was silly, it was fun, and it was, at best, marginally competitive.

Now, it’s an excuse for people on Twitter to muse about what went wrong and whether they enjoy basketball anymore.

So I’ll just sum it all up in a couple of sentences here: the Dunk Contest only had one good dunker, but wow, was he good! The Rising Stars Bracket/Challenge was competitive to an extreme and saw a team of G-Leaguers nearly make it out. The Three Point Contest happened. The Skills Challenge featured a Chris Paul exposure and temper tantrum, which I enjoyed greatly. Lastly, the All-Star Game featured at least one competitive game as it was clear that no one wanted to lose to “Candace’s Rising Stars.”

What the All-Star Game didn’t feature, however, was Minnesota Timberwolves superstar Anthony Edwards, who didn’t touch the floor. As the only Wolf in San Francisco, it’s a little disappointing that Minnesota was represented in name only.

Ultimately, this was a massive improvement from last year’s convey0r belts of dunks and boredom. It still didn’t hit the nostalgic highs of the early 2000s when players took the game incredibly seriously or even the duel of Tim Hardaway Jr. and Dion Waiters. But it was watchable, and that’s a step in the right direction.

The only other event really worth focusing on is the dunk contest and the think pieces accompanying it. I will agree with the crowd that it feels strange to call upon Mac McClung to save the competition year after year as a sideshow and not as a rostered player. However, I would push back on the fact that this is bad for the competition. As the cars were driven on to and off of the court, as Mobleys were jumped over, and as friends looked terrified to be a prop, Mac did everything the NBA is hoping he’ll do: he got NBA players thinking about joining in next year.

This was the weakest slate of dunkers the contest has seen in what feels like ages, but if this McClung threepeat leads to a murderer’s row of competitors next year, it’ll all look a lot more fun.

And who knows, maybe Ant will play then.