Viva Las Vegas (NBA Style)

Another NBA All Star Weekend has come and gone and once again there was controversy involved in the main event, the Slam Dunk Competition. I’ll get to that later on but first the results.

Rookie-Sophomore Game: Sophomores (MVP: David Lee)

Skills Competition Winner: Dwayne Wade aka D-Wade

The Race: Charles “Chuckster” Barkley

For those of you who may have missed one of the best All Star moments in recent history, fear not, you can check out the race in its entirety in the following video.

3-Point Shootout Winner: Jason Kapono

Slam Dunk Champion: Gerald Green*

Now the only reason I post an asterisk beside Gerald Green’s name is because my main man Dwight Howard (D-How) was robbed. Check out his second dunk of the night and tell me how you could not give that dunk a 45+.

Dwight Howard put a sticker at 12.6 feet and still dunked the ball. The man touched 12.6 feet with ease and the judges (who barely gave out a 10 and were the hardest judges for the Slam Dunk contest as far as I can remember) did not give one 10. MJ was straight up on crack as he was the toughest judge of them all and just refused to give anyone any love. I’m guessing he either lost too much money in Vegas since he’s been there or he’s just mad that he can’t play anymore but either way, MJ was mad at something and this time he had nobody to shit on. Now last year it was Andre Iguodala who got robbed and this year it was Dwight Howard. I have no doubt in my mind that it should have been Gerald Green & Dwight Howard in the final round instead of Nate Robinson, (who STUNK it up in the final round) but then again there is only sooo much a 5′8 man can do. In my personal opinion, had Dwight Howard made it into the final round he would have done something spectacular and also would’ve put the pressure on Gerald Green to do something amazing as well and not just catch a ball out of mid air and dunk it. Hopefully D-How stays true to his word and does come back next year as he said he would. Now I don’t want to take anything away from Gerald Green, the man did his thing and pulled out the victory and I hope he also returns next year to defend his crown. All in all I wasn’t that impressed with All Star Saturday but I wasn’t that disappointed either. On the bright side, at least the NBA had their All Star festivities during the weekend.

The All Star Game itself was one of the more entertaining ones in recent memory as the players put on a show. Also, the windmill dunk has replaced the 360 as to what dunk a player should do if he’s on a breakaway. Chris Bosh showed that he can dunk with the windmill that he did when no one expected it and Shawn Marion was just a dunking machine. Dwight Howard showed that he is the next Shaq with the way he just abused the West Centers with his array of power dunks. LeBron had some nice ones as did Wade, Melo, T-Mac and the rest of the crew. The MVP was no one other than ya boy Kobe Bryant. Now anyone that even tried to guard him had no success whatsoever. Look at it this way, Early Boykins has a better chance of dunking on Yao Ming than anyone has of guarding Kobe. He showed off his full arsenal as his array of reverse dunks, shots and blow bys made everyone get out of their seats. All in all, the game itself was very entertaining and hopefully the games continue to be this good in the upcoming years.

One last note, if you missed the hilarious dance off between Shaq, LeBron & Dwight Howard on Saturday afternoon, no worries, y’all know Imma hook you up.

Actually one more note from Scottie Pippen:

“I know that, but I think people love me just as much as they love Michael,” Pippen said. “The fans who understand the game, the GMs and coaches. I think they’d rather have a Scottie than a Michael.”

There was an awkward, shocked pause after Pippen answered—Pippen over Jordan?—and someone finally asked why.

“Because I’m an all-around player,” Pippen added. “Coaches would rather have a Scottie-type player than a Michael. I was an all-around player. I made people around me better.”

Now I know I said MJ was on straight up crack during this weekend but I think Scottie finally outdid his Airness this time as he had to be doing some real bad crack to say something like that. Scottie looks like he’s a recovering crack addict. Those skinny ass legs combined with that fucked up face he has now for some reason. When he’s laughing, his entire face runs a transformation Optimus Prime style or maybe it’s jus me and he looks exactly the same. Nevertheless, I still say he had to be on crack when he made the above statement and he’ll probably find a team to play for in these upcoming months.

Final Results:

Me: 1-4

Shinda: 2-3

Deep Singh: 3-2

Harsimran: 2-2 (He didn’t feel the need to choose a Slam Dunk winner)

PS: If you want people to come out to Youth Kirtan Darbars, stop scheduling them on the same day as NBA All Star Saturday.