All-Star Saturday Night Recap!

There were a bunch of things happening yesterday during the festival we call All-Star Weekend!

Hall of Fame Announcement:

Out of all the players, coaches, and contributors out there the Hall of Fame has elected 14 finalists to make it. (The finalists will be voted on and the final announcements will be made in April.) These finalists are: Chris Webber, Tim Hardaway, Tracy McGrady, Rudy Tomjanovich, Sidney Moncrief (honestly should have been in the HOF earlier), Rebecca Lobo, Hugh Evans (ref), Rollie Massinino (coach), Kim Mulkey (coach), Bill Self (coach), Robert Hughes (coach), Muffet McGraw (coach, already in the best names HOF), Bo Ryan (coach), and the Wayland Baptist University team (10 time AAU national champions).

Out of the major NBA players here, Webber, Hardaway, McGrady, and Moncrief -- how many of them have actually played in an NBA Finals game (do you know the answer without looking it up)? Lots of All-Star Games. Not a lot of post season wins.

All-Star Practice:

I didn’t watch this.

NBA D-League All-Star Game:

I did not watch this either, but the East won 105-100. Quinn Cook took away the MVP trophy here as his 18 points and 12 assists led the way for the East. Troy Williams won the D-League Slam Dunk contest. Scott Wood won the D-League Three-Point contest.

Our guys Joel Bolomboy played 14 minutes and finished with 5 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block. No big highlights there, so here’s what he’s been doing with the Stars:

Adam Silver media availability:

There were a few good bits here, so I will do a full post on it later on, but this gem was worth sharing immediately.

This is what you wanted to see.

State Farm All-star Saturday Night:

In addition to the main events there were some performances and random things like the Craig Sager moments and the charity shooting contest.

Taco Bell Skills Challenge:

Kristaps Porzingis defeated Gordon Hayward for the title here. How did they get there? G-Time beat John Wall and Isaiah Thomas (who had beat Devin Booker). Porzgawd beat Demarcus Cousins and Nikola Jokic (who beat Anthony Davis). It was pretty much the most exciting thing that night.

For reals.

JBL Three-Point Contest:

We had a pretty fun overtime period of this final round between Eric Gordon and Kyrie Irving (who both had 20 points in the championship round). Gordon took it in the OT period, beating Irving 21-18.

I wasn’t that impressed with Kyle Lowry (9 points), C.J. McCollum (10), Wesley Matthews (11), Nick Young (18), or Klay Thompson (18). Kemba Walker was okay. None of them were Joe Ingles.

Verizon Slam Dunk Contest:

It was a fight between Aaron Gordon and the expectations — and Glenn Robinson III and Derrick Jones Jr. stole the show. DeAndre Jordan was there too, so good for him? I don’t know. I will say that the degree of difficulty of these dunks were not that high; furthermore, the variety of dunks appeared to be very similar. (Jump over three people, Jump over prop, etc)

I think that Derrick Jones had the best dunk of the night, but Big Dog’s son was the guy who won. And that’s the guy I was rooting for, so . . . hooray?

Overall, not the worst All-Star Saturday night in history. Would have wanted G-Time to win. But the big win is being there and in these events. He will be suiting up tonight for the NBA All-Star Game. You can watch it at 6 pm (MT) on TNT!