Sunday’s NBA All Star game was one the most, if not the most, entertaining all star game ever played. It was everything one could want in a meaningless game celebrating the very best the sport has to offer. Traditionally, MLB’s All Star game has been the only authentically entertaining contest of all the major sports, and not just because that game had the gimmick to matter for the postseason, and in doing so created a bit of controversy of its own, which most likely led to that gimmick’s demise.
That is not to say that only baseball has cornered the market on gimmicks, the NBA had a few quirks designed to up the entertainment quotient for its annual game as well. Ratings had dropped in recent years, as fans across the board have become bored with the “east vs west” dichotomy that had worn thin decades ago as the NBA’s Western Conference has routinely dominated in the regular season and in the playoffs. The East has won only four of the last 11 championships and three of those teams contained an essential ingredient: LeBron James. Not since Jordan’s Bulls teams has a team from the East consistently been considered the favorite to win the championship each and every year.
Now the teams are picked by the team captains, each getting a gym class style pick ’em to decide each team’s roster. I’m pretty sure the stakes are a little less in terms of who’s the last pick like a middle school game of flag football’s choice between tomboy Jenny and Kevin, the weird kid that picks his nose and stares at the results.
Instead, Team LeBron and Team Giannis picked their team from relative NBA studs, though quite a number were making their All Star game debuts. Milwaukee Bucks great Giannis Antetokounmpo for his part did not win over fans with his picking prowess. Anytime your draft skills are compared to the Browns it’s not a good sign. The Greek Freak definitely had a plan, strategically picking younger newer talent, while the Laker’s LeBron James went with established stars and future Hall of Famers. Kahwi, Dame, and Paul are all bound for Springfield, and I’ll claim Harden and Westbrook are two. Come at me bro.
But even with all that talent, the game still needed to pull in the casual viewer and what better way to do that but with a little pull at the heartstrings and a little social activism? Each team was playing for a specific charity and they won money to be donated to their selection for each quarter won, with those periods existing seperately from the other until the final quarter tally. Fitting that the teams then split the first half and then tied in the third. Whomever won the fourth and final quarter won all the cash earned in the third after the draw.
But instead of a timed fourth quarter, with a definitive final second to tick off, the teams played to a predetermined goal of 157 points. No different than the neighborhood playground rules of first to 20 wins, the NBA All Star game now had an old school last shot wins feel.
And that was perfect.
I found myself so much more invested in the result than that of just seeing another celebratory athlete blowout. In past years, I’ve watched the game to see breakaway dunks, ridiculous no-look passes, and fantasy team ups in the basketball version of The Avengers, but much like my interest in the Slam Dunk Contest, that desire to watch waned.
But the intractability of that point total: 157.
The math was easy enough, just add Kobe’s 24 to the leading total score entering the fourth, and there you have it, 157. But it strikes at the best part of sports: its unpredictability and the anticipation of the unexpected. We don’t know what the total will be until the end of the third, and when we do, we’re not sure of how we’ll get there. This gives an otherwise empty game verifiable stakes, (Who’s going to win? Which star will step up?) And that’s what sports is really and ultimately why we love them. Let’s hope other sports take the same initiative and put a little effort into making their All Star games a bit more meaningful.