All-star weekend

Another NBA all-star weekend is in the books. The Saturday night festivities this year were worse than usual. The slam-dunk contest was uninspired and boring. It might have taken a step or 3 back. The last few years have been marginally exciting. Not so much this time. The 3-point shooting contest was also sub-par and the "HORSE" contest is just plain stupid. I don't know if I am biased, but the skills competition which Steve Nash won was the only interesting part of Saturday night. Thats because it tests some skills and there's a clock that guys have to beat. It's kinda exciting to some extent. I would expand it and make it more interesting and take a serious look at revamping all of the other events. They need better contests and better contestants. I was disappointed in Shannon Brown of the Lakers. The guy can literally jump out of the gym and his dunks were not even half as impressive as his dunks in a real game. Did he even think about this contest or did he just show up? He even dragged Kobe out for a stupid dunk that half of the NBA can do in a real game. Demar Derozan of the Toronto Raptors came with a plan, but he was over-matched. NBA needs better contestants or they should shut this slam-dunk contest down.

Today's game was not too bad. I mean all All-Star games suck, but this was lower on the suckage scale compared to the usual fare. It was close at the end and the East won it. I was amazed that more than 108,000 people showed up to watch this thing. I am sure somebody made a lot of money. I just hope the people working the concessions etc. made some good money too. It was probably not a bad all-star game to try and score some tickets for considering the size of that stadium. But then again, what are you going to see from the nose-bleeds in that monster? Both LeBron and Shakira probably look like David Stern from up there. One of the most retarded things I have ever seen happened towards the end of this game. Deron Williams actually fouled D-Wade with just 13 seconds to go and with the score all tied up. The dude had no idea what the score was. If this doesn't tell us how irrelevant these All-Star games are, not sure what will. And that too it was Deron Williams - a guy who is coached everyday by Jerry Sloan. But then he got off the hook as the game featured a few more fouls on both sides as guys couldn't keep their hands off the other team. But at least those morons didn't foul intentionally like Deron did.

Time to get back to the regular season. I am hoping the Phoenix Suns continue their good run and bounce all the way back. The trade deadline is this Thursday and it would be interesting to see what happens with Amare. Dallas has already traded Josh Howard as part of a package for Caron Butler and a bunch of pieces from Washington. Great trade for Dallas. A healthy Howard is probably more useful all-around player than Caron Butler, but he has never been healthy lately. Plus all his off-field transgressions has upset the Dallas fan-base. He had to go. Butler brings a lot of scoring to Big-D and he will take some pressure off Dirk - the same help that Marion was supposed to provide, but he never did. Matrix has not shot over 25% from beyond the arc since he left Steve Nash. Dallas also gets some size in Brendan Haywood. It's a good trade for Dallas, though I Don't know how much better they are with Butler. One problem is, he is not that different from Marion and Nowitzki from a position and role perspective. Suns will see them soon and it should be a fun game. Even as a big-time NBA fan, I have to say, the sports world is just not the same without the NFL. There was winter Olympics, Daytona 500, NBA all-star game and college basketball this weekend, but all of that combined can't replace the NFL. The guys suffering the most should be the sports talk show and TV show guys. There is nothing to talk about and hence people won't tune in. NFL is truly the king in this country.