The NBA All-Star Game has no meaning: How to make it relevant

The Rising Stars game was a fun way to see the minds of Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley dueling via a fantasy draft. The game, was nothing more than a real time dunk contest. There has to be some sort of accountability and competition in the All-Star Game. Nobody wants to get hurt, but save for the dunk contest, skills competition, and three point shootout, there really is no purpose except to show off.

That is what the dunk contest is for.

To make the ASG relevant for basketball fans who want to see these players play hard, the MLB-esque rules should be in place. Yes, there should be home court advantage for high seeds in the playoff picture. The NBA Finals are an indication of national supremacy. Since the East and West rarely clash, and sometimes barely meet if at all before their finals match ups, the NBA All-Star Game needs purpose.

MLB All-Stars go hard, because there are serious implications for contenders. Home field advantage in a seven game series is what is at stake when the NL and AL meet for the final time of the year. Rewarding one team for beating up on their division twenty times is no way to play out the finals. Watching the likes of Los Angeles Clippers PF Blake Griffin and L.A. Lakers SG Kobe Bryant inflate their heads to bigger heights with ego-maniacal self pass dunks and twirling one-handers is fun and games, but if I really want to watch a game-time dunk contest, I would lower my hoop to 9 feet and have at it!

The conceptual entirety of sports was devised at the advent of Neolithic society as a way of men to compete without killing each other. Once communities became sedentary, tribes formed and conflicts played out in a bloody rivalry. Women later entered the fray, when they realized they could play as well, instead of caring to the home and tilling the fields while men duked it out in a primordial Olympiad. So men dropped the swords and picked up a ball. The violence of sports ensued, and as bloodsport evolved to rugby, and rugby to football, the ferocity remained with a smaller semblance of concussive death.

The lack of effort in the NBA All-Star Game is depressing. The entire purpose of playing with a ball instead of blade is scoffed at with windmill dunks and one-handed free throws.Then there are those who will argue that defense and an actual game like atmosphere will remove the fun from the ASG. Coming from experience, it is far more fun to watch Miami Heat SF LeBron James wreck New York Knicks C Tyson Chandler than have Chandler clear a path so LeBron can show off.

It seems as if fans have become accustomed to the false principle that the ASG is more “fun” than anything else. Sure, we here in Florida will pull for the East, but for what reason? Is it not incredibly enjoyable as a guy who grew up in the Miami Metro Area to watch the Heat play on a nightly basis? Fans treat the ASG like a day off from the “chore” of watching basketball.

Fans and pundits act like the ASG is relief from some sort of residual pain left over by the regular season. It is surprising in the least, for the overreaction to have the game seem like a headache. Instead of inflating already explosive egos and watching guys part the Red Sea for a guy who wants to dunk, give them a reason to play. This is no Coliseum, but it is a sport, and to win, you have to give it your all.

Tags: Blake Griffin, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James