NBA All-Star Weekend

This past weekend was the NBA All-Star Weekend, which was held in Indianapolis, Indiana. The NBA does this every year and it’s a way for players to rest for a week and rest, and a way for fans to watch the events. These events include the Dunk Contest, 3-Point Contest, Skills Challenge, and the All-Star Game. This year, there was a special event that was a 3-Point Contest between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu. They had done this because Stephen Curry is the best 3-point shooter in basketball history. Sabrina Ionescu broke the 3-Point Contest record for WNBA. They had done this to see who would win. The first round ended in a tie so they then had to go to the 2nd round and Stephen Curry ended up winning it all. The 3-Point contest was also okay, but Damian Lillard won it all which was kind of expected from my point of view. 

The dunk contest in my opinion was pretty bad. All the dunks are just so simple and boring. Nothing really amazed me in the dunk contest and I bet it was the same for others too. The players do better dunks in an actual game such as Jaime Jaquez Jr. He has done some pretty fantastic dunks in the game but this dunk contest was just plain and simple. The most interesting contestant in the dunk contest was a kid from the G-League and he ended up winning it all. The player was Mac Mclung and he won it last year too. He is a back-to-back dunk contest winner, this year and last year. 

For the past few years, they’ve been doing a skills challenge, it is a 3v3 skills challenge with the best trios from this season. That is also pretty boring. This year’s winners were the players on the Indiana Pacers. Tyrese Haliburton, Myles Turner, and Benedict Mathurin. This trio has been doing amazing this season, they are 7th in the Eastern Conference with a 33-26 record which is pretty good considering they weren’t the best last season. The All-Star Game is not a very fun event and is pretty boring too. The players were just chucking up 3-Pointers the entire game and had attempted 168 3-Pointers and only 66 were made. After the game, Kevin Durant said, “Hard to play defense when somebody’s shooting 30-40 footers over you.” The game just isn’t interesting anymore, there is no defense at all, and the players don’t even try. I get why they don’t but also, if you’re selected as an All-Star, that means you have been playing insanely well all year. But also, the All-Star game is about a month before the Playoffs and the players don’t want to get injured at all. They want to be in the best shape possible for the Playoffs. The East Team ended up winning the game with a score of 211-186. Damian Lillard won the All-Star game MVP. This is the first time in NBA history that an NBA player has won a 3-Point Contest and the All-Star game MVP.