2024 All Star Weekend

 I used to love the All Star Weekend and get to watch the 3 point competition, the dunk contest, and the all star game. The best of the best play each other with their full abilities, try their best, and make incredible plays. But this year, unfortunately, may have been one of the worst years of all star weekend with nobody going above and beyond on the main stage.

To start off... they have the 3 point contest where the best of the best play the big day. Larry Bird, Ray Allen, Kyle Korver, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, all of them. But a problem that has happened already... they do not even have the best players in the NBA right now competing in the competition. They had Damien Lillard, Trae Young, and Karl-Anthony Towns in the final round. They are pretty great shooters, but nothing was too crazy during the competition and Damien Lillard went Dame Time and won the competition. I personally thing next year, they should either get the 5 best shooters statistically that year to be in the contest, or just pick 5 centers and let them shoot and people can just watch and enjoy the entertainment. 

The dunk competition unfortunately been so good throughout the years, that if it does not go above and beyond, it is a dud. They are not the biggest of names in the dunk contest and because of social media now, every cool dunk has already happened so no fans can be truly impressed. The winner of the NBA dunk contest, was not a consistent NBA player. I am a huge fan of Mac McClung, but he has only played 4 NBA games this year. I personally have thought he is good enough to play in the NBA somewhere, but knowing he is only put in the league to play in the dunk contest is nuts. The other dunkers did not do well but Mac has done what he was supposed to do and got the job done. Hopefully next year Mac has a full year contract, and wins and gets a 3 peat in 2025. 

397 points... are you kidding me. The game ended up East beating West 211-186, with a score that is so insane, I cannot believe they let this happened. In this generation, I understand players are AMAZING at their craft. Some of these players can shoot the ball from anywhere past the half court line, and some can even shoot behind the half court line. Some of the newbies gave a little more effort than others, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scoring 31 points, Karl-Anthony Towns scoring 50 points, and the MVP who also won the 3 point contest, Damien Lillard scoring 39 points. The stats unfortunately not that impressive because everyone scored a bunch of points because the total was 397 freaking points... I understand you do not want to give a lot of effort, but literally you might as well done open gym shooting for 60 minutes and call it a day. This generation has been insane because you cannot tell me that the previous generation players would allow open shots. They have that killer mentality where no matter what happens, they are going all out. These past years, they just don't have it unfortunately. They really should just film one of the summer hoop games where the players make these incredible plays against good defense, which makes it actually impressive.

Overall, the All Star Weekend has been the same that it has been that last previous years which is just been... "blah". I am curious if they will ever change it to new things, but hopefully the top 3 things; dunk contest, 3 point competition, and the all star weekend, will keep going but hopefully be a tad more competitive in the future.