As we in Milwaukee (or, in my case, from Milwaukee) patiently wait for regular games to start up again, the rest of the NBA has turned its attention to All Star Weekend in Phoenix.  After watching the Rookie-Sophomore game, it's clear that a) Kevin Durant is going to be special and b) Ramon Sessions deserved to be there. 

In fact, Sessions was probably the only Buck that had a shot at participating in any of the events (although I feel that LRMaM deserved a shot at playing for the rookies; he might not have the stats, but he's certainly got the skills).  In any case, given that there were no Milwaukee representatives for the event, do Bucks fans have a reason to watch?

Well, yes and no.  If you're watching because you want to see how your team representative(s) do, then Milwaukee fans have nothing.  If you want to watch great basketball, witness feats of athleticism previously unimaginable, and be endlessly entertained and amused, then we might tune in.  But we'd be disappointed.

NBA All Star Weekend has been stagnant for some time now.  The Celebrity Game is essentially the worst pick-up game imaginable; a bunch of people who can't play that well jack up jump shots that have no chance of going in (I'm looking at you, Chris Tucker).  The Rookie-Sophomore game is essentially the same as the regular All-Star game; a glorified layup line.  The Shooting Stars Challenge, Skillz Competition, 3-Point Shootout, and Dunk Contest have gone stale on us; they are repetitive, redundant, and repetitively redundant.

In short, it's a boring weekend with really lame events.  So how do we fix it?  Kevin Arnovitz of Henry Abbott'sTrueHoop (one of the few outlets owned by ESPN that hasn't completely sold out) provides us with a great post, chock full of ideas of how to improve the festivities.  I'll let you read it at your leisure, but my favorite idea was #7:

Athleticism is a beautiful thing to behold, but there are also some infectious personalities in the League that deserve some face time. The Slam Dunk competition is one of the few events that seems to capture that appeal. Improvisation is a great way to bring out the characters of the game. In that spirit, TrueHoop's Henry Abbott put forward this idea a couple years back, an event that would steal the weekend:

Strap a cordless microphone on every player, start each player with $20,000 cash, and let them make whatever bets they want with each other. $5,000 I can hit a half-court shot before you. $10k says the judges will like my tomahawk jam more than yours. $20,000 says I can shoot 50% from the free throw line blind-folded. That kind of thing. To keep everyone from talking at once, I guess they should be paired up, which would require some kind of elimination tournament. If they had this, it would be the must-see event of All-Star weekend. It's like poker meets basketball.

Teams make these kind of wagers all the time in practice. It makes for great fun. Imagine what a big stage, a little choreography, and some lead time could produce!

Best idea ever?  Best idea ever.  I would totally cancel my Valentine's Day plans to watch Shaq gamble more money than I'm worth on him being able to hit more 3-pointers than Dwight Howard.  Unless my fiance is reading this, in which case I am totally joking.

So what do you think, Bucks fans?  Would you watch All Star Weekend as is, or do you want to see some of these ideas put into play before you set your DVR?