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Every Monday at 5:00 PM Central this all-purpose thread goes up, and the comments section is where it’s going down. This is your place to discuss all the NBA’s action happening during the week when the Bucks are off-duty.
Well, that was a weekend.
I’ve nothing against the All-Star Break. Honestly, I don’t. However, it suffers from the same sort of dumbing down tendencies of all showcase events across all major sporting organizations. Outside of last year’s blip of an All-Star Game, the annual gathering has been a chance for the league to whirlwind into a city before said market is re-consigned to the pits of non-existence. Once at the host location, the players are recruited for events that have either outlived their usefulness (goodnight, sweet Dunk Contest prince), don’t involve nearly enough inflatable arm men as obstacles (thus invalidating any true test of one’s “skills”), or inspire such little effort and investment from participants that they’re regularly mocked (ASG, come on down).
Maybe I just need to get over myself and accept that a mid-season PR exercise isn’t the end of the world. We’d all love for the ASG to live up to our dreams of being the fantasy version of a pantheon of basketball gods duking it out at 100% effort, but I’m not sure that’s ever been the case or ever will be. There’s too much future money, future performance, future legacy at stake to ever incentivize guys to put themselves in too much danger of injury, and that’s okay. As long as they have fun and the NBA can produce an entertaining show, there’s no harm, no foul.
Plus, look at Giannis’s smile. If he can have fun, shouldn’t I?
Back to basketball.