While most of the world celebrated Valentine’s Day two weekends ago, the NBA world celebrated All-Star Weekend 2016. All-Star Weekend is arguably the best time for NBA fans like myself. It’s a time for fun, relaxation and friendship. During this time, NBA players and fans forget about the pressure of the grueling 82 game season and sit back and enjoy the game of basketball the way it was meant to be enjoyed. Fans forget about their beloved teams’ horrible record (Philly fans know what I’m talking about) and watch the best-of-the-best players compete in all sorts of challenges.
NBA All-Star weekend lasted from Feb. 12 to Feb. 14. On the first day of All-Star Weekend, All-Star Friday, ESPN hosted the Celebrity All-Star game where older NBA stars, WNBA stars and popular celebrities played against each other in a short game. TNT then hosted the Rising Stars challenge where first and second year NBA players played against each other. This year since the All-Star festivities took place in Toronto, Canada the two teams were USA versus the World (all the international players).
Perhaps the most exciting time of the entire All-Star weekend, and my absolute favorite, was All-Star Saturday where the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, the Three Point Contest and the main event, the Slam Dunk Contest, took place. This year’s dunk contest was said to be the best that the NBA has not only seen recently but possibly the best ever. It went down to the wire between the Minnesota Timberwolves and reigning Slam Dunk Contest winner, Zach Lavine, and Orlando Magic’s, Aaron Gordon. These two players exchanged dunk after dunk not only blowing the crowd away, but leaving the judges with a hard decision to choose the winner. After about three tie breaking rounds, Zach Lavine came out on top as the back-to-back slam dunk champion.
All-Star Sunday features the main event, the All Star game. This was by far the saddest of the events being that it is Kobe Bryant, aka the Black Mamba’s, final All-Star game. The Laker star received applause and standing ovations from the Toronto crowd and got a tribute by former Laker, Magic Johnson, wishing him farewell. Hip-hop star Drake also gave Kobe a tribute wearing a “Farewell Mamba” leather jacket to pay his respects for Kobe’s 20 year NBA career.
The actual All-Star game broke records for being the highest scoring All-Star game ever. The West team, who won the game, scored 196 points and the East team scored 173. Oklahoma City Thunder guard, Russell Westbrook, won All-Star MVP for the second year in a row, becoming the first player to do so.
All-Star Weekend lived up to the hype and excitement that I thought it would. It was record breaking and all in all a fun weekend. The second half of the season is rapidly approaching which consists of trade deadlines, playoff pushes and, in my opinion, probably more exciting than All Star weekend … the NBA playoffs, starting on April 16th. It’s just less than two months away from watching the best teams of the season go head-to-head for victory. Within each conference, the three division winners and the five non-division winners with the most wins qualified for the playoffs. I’m excited to see how our season’s best compete this year.