We’re now a couple of days removed from the NBA All-Star “Weekend,” and it feels a bit… bland. We all kind of expected that Steph Curry would win the 3-Point Contest, NBA Twitter didn’t really enjoy the Dunk Contest, and the All-Star Game was really never a game. The Skills Competition was fine, I guess, but who really cares about it? I miss when I was looking forward to that weekend, and I think I have a few ideas on how to fix it. Let’s jump into it.
No More Skills Competitions
Ten years ago, it really was cool to see someone who’s considered a “big man” doing guard-like things. The problem in today’s league is that every single person in the league has the ability to shoot, dribble, and pass. This isn’t just a guard’s skillset anymore. If you aren’t a five-tool player, unless you’re a specialist, it’ll be hard for you to get any playing time at all. Taco Bell can sponsor something else on this list, but the Skills Competition is obsolete.
Bring Back the HORSE Competition
Surely, I can’t be the only person who enjoyed it. We all started playing basketball in our back yard or at the park, and when it wasn’t one-on-one or running 5’s, it was HORSE or Knockout. There is an untapped world of HORSE shots we haven’t seen yet from players, and All-Star Weekend would be the place to showcase what’s possible.
1v1 Tournament
We’ve been begging for it for years. Everyone in the league keeps talking about it, and it’s time to make it happen. Start it on Friday, and have it be at the halftime break of the All-Star Game, or before, I really don’t care. Have a field of 16 players, and just let them go to work. First to 8, to honor Kobe, 1’s and 2’s, and at the end we can finally crown the King of the Court.
3×3 Tournament
With FIBA and the Olympic Committee, not to mention Ice Cube and his Big3 League, coming together and making 3×3 basketball an official sport, it only makes sense that we’d have a tournament for it. Maybe 8 teams, the players can coordinate with themselves who wants to play with who, and let’s just have some fun. Anyone who’s played knows that 3×3 basketball might as well be an entirely different game than 5×5, and with the first Olympics with a 3×3 category coming up, we could use this as a potential training camp to see who could represent at the Olympic Games.
Get Rid of the Dunk Contest
This is by far the most controversial idea I have for the All-Star Weekend, but I can’t help but feel this way. I think that we have quite literally seen it all in the dunk contest. Windmills, Eastbays, 360s, 12′ rims, jumping over a car… everything has been done, and I think that until we start seeing dunks online that have never been done, we need to retire the contest. This isn’t the old days when Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter were coming up with dunks on the spot, or when Dwight Howard was just jumping so high to throw the ball in the hoop. We’ve reached the apex of dunking, and until there’s a breakthrough, this needs to be put to rest.
Round The Game 
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