The Worst of NBA All-Star Weekend

The NBA All-Star Weekend had plenty of highlights. Dwight Howard bringing down the house in the dunk contest, Jason Kapono tying the record in the 3 point shooting contest, a close game, and perhapes more importantly the league and its players coming together in an effort to help rebuild the ravaged New Orleans community were just some of the highlights from an action packed weekend. There were also plenty of lowlights, so let's take a look.

The Dunk Contest Judges- Remember the year Kobe, MJ, Vince, Dominique, and DR. J were the judges? There's five guys who know what a good dunk is. I'm just wondering why in the hell Darryl Dawkins and Karl Malone were judging a slam dunk contest. The most creative thing Karl Malone did in his career was a left handed lay-up, while Darryl Dawkins is simply a guy no one remembers. Plus it doesn't help when Dawkins says in an interview following the contest that he was rooting for Dwight Howard. How does the birthday cake dunk only get a score of 46? That was the most creative gimmick dunk in the history of the contest. Sure, the superman dunk was cool, but he threw it in, so technically it wasn't even a dunk. The NBA should consider a criteria for scoring points in the dunk contest, instead of having washed up players hand out 10's to every cool dunk. And if you missed it, here's Gerald Green's birthday cake dunk.


Rudy Gay- What was the point of Rudy Gay going on youtube asking fans for suggestions on different dunks to do? If he did listen to the fans they must have suggested some pretty ordinary dunks, because I've seen Gay throw down better dunks in games.

Dwyane Wade- The laziest performance of the weekend easily goes to Wade, who really decided to take his time during the skills competition on Saturday night. Sure he screwed up, that happens, but he had people holding their breaths hoping for some kinda big throwdown at the end of his lackluster performance, and what does he do? He goes for a lay-up, and misses.

Kenny Smith- Is it just me or is Kenny Smith becoming one of the most annoying sports announcers? Everytime someone throw's down a dunk, he screams to the top of his lungs that it's the best dunk he has ever seen. Kenny has great opinions and analysis of the game, but had fans reaching for the advil all weekend long by yelling something rediculous every 10 seconds. Kenny Smith see's the best dunk he has ever seen 8 times every game.

Jason Kidd's Ugly Kid- Did anyone else find this 8 year old with a moustache extremely annoying. I did.

Pretty good weekend besides the above mentioned stuff. The NBA and MLB are probably tied for the best All-Star festivities, but there's always room for improvement.

By the way, here's an idea for a great dunk-Use a strip of duct tape to tape the ball to the backboard. Get a good running start, then rip the ball off the backboard and dunk it. It's probably harder than it sounds, but it would score a 50... Unless Darryl Dawkins was judging it.

-Joe Osborne