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The annual weekend-long All Star festivities bring about a new array of exciting moments that monopolize our group chats and newsfeeds in the best way possible. This year’s events from The Big Easy brought some notable headlines, swirling trade rumors, and awkward reunions between former teammates that ended in the lob heard ‘round the world. But with all the good, comes the oh-so-bad, and this year definitely had some lackluster moments that will live in the All Star Hall of Shame for years to come.
Biggest Success of ASW: I’d love to say that the biggest success of this weekend was the 81-second reunion of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant on the court together, but I’m not one for the sappiness. Instead, I’m going to go with the performance of New Orleans own, Anthony Davis, as the definite highlight of a boisterous weekend.
Davis totally took this weekend to put on for his city and remind the world that he is indeed one of the best and most exciting players our league has to offer. As the host player of the weekend, AD took it upon himself to show up and show out….and casually break some 55-year old record that many thought was untouchable.
The Brow posted 52 points and 10 rebounds en route to taking home the nod of All Star MVP, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s long-standing record of 42 points from 1962. His Western Conference teammates were noticeably helping the big man achieve that status by throwing him lob after lob to lead the West to a 192-182 win. Davis deservedly won the MVP honors and put on a killer show for the fans. And hey! Ending the weekend with news of Demarcus Cousins headed to his team was just the cherry on top of a highly successful weekend for The Brow.
Biggest Failure of ASW: With successes, comes failures and the biggest failure was the marquee event of All Star Saturday night. This year’s dunk contest was….um…not so great. And I’m being incredibly generous with that sentiment.
Like most other people, I look forward to this display of pure creativity and athleticism, and just like most other people, I was face-palming in total disappointment. This year’s dunk contest involved very little actual dunking; it was more of just a “who had the best missed attempt” contest. It was incredibly cringe-worthy.
You know your event is a likely failure when the star of last year’s contests fails to make the final round and barely even finish his dunks. I was hyped to see what Aaron Gordon had in store for us this year, but that hyped died quicker than Gordon’s chances to take home the hardware.
It was expected that it would be incredibly difficult to follow up last years totally epic dunk contest, but this one didn’t even come remotely close to competing. Even the subpar dunks of last year’s main event would have held their own in this years lackluster contest. This was a major indication of the league needing stars to participate in this long-awaited event. But thankfully, we got our own make-up dunk contest on Sunday night from our All Stars and their amazing feats of athleticism and showmanship on full display.
Let’s hope ASW in Los Angeles next year brings us even more dope moments and makes up for the bore of a dunk contest we had to struggle through this year. See you in LA, All Stars!