Have you ever bought what looked like a big box of candy (my
preference would be something like Milk Duds or Skittles) and walked out of the
store with your mouth watering only to find that this “big” box just holds a
little tiny bag of that favorite candy you just paid for? Disappointment, frustration, anger, even a
loss of appetite. This is how I feel when I clear an evening to watch the NBA
All-Star Game.
There are a few things that are fundamentally wrong with
this game and the advertisement that is surrounding it. There is something even more wrong with the
people who pay so much to go and worship a group of athletes who half-try in a
competition against the “best in the world”.
But, if you were one of the players in this game, and there was next to
nothing to gain for winning, and everything to lose if you get hurt, who could
blame you for not playing hard and putting on a good display of effort and
skill. And how many players have fallen
off the wagon completely after they were selected to be on the all-star team
based on their performance from only the first half of the season?
For me, the real question and point of concern is why the
NBA even does the All-Star game. The
slam dunk, three-point, and skills competition are completely different, and I
don’t think those are a complete waste of time.
Here is what I have to resolve the issue: Instead of a lousy $50,000
bonus to each player on the winning team in the All-Star game (I say lousy in
comparison to the multi-million dollars earned by these players each year according to Forbes), let’s
see what happens when we put the All-Star game at the end of the season! Let’s put it right before the NBA draft, let’s
give the winning team (east or west) home-court advantage in the Finals, and
let’s give the All-Star game MVP’s team the number one draft pick. The last one would be fun just because it
seems that “super teams” are all the rage now, so why not fuel that fire?
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