TheSecretWeapon wrote:keynote wrote:The skills competition is all downside and no upside brand-wise. It's a boring, the competitors don't take it seriously, and no one talks about it or pulls up YouTube clips of past competitions. The dunk contest, OTOH, can increase visibility for players who are already fairly popular, and Wall certainly qualifies.
I would've been excited for Wall to defend his "crown"; OTOH, he'd have been lined up vs. a bunch of rookies and role players of lesser star wattage. So, I'm fine with him prioritizing rest.
If it was me running All-Star weekend, and the goal was to attract audience and build the brands of stars, I'd implement what I think would be a fairly simple solution: I'd require every All-Star to participate in one of the weekend contests. There'd probably need to be an additional contest or two to accommodate all 24 guys. Maybe something needed for bigs too. Or, maybe populate a dunk contest, 3pt shooting, that shooting stars thing with a WNBA player and a yesteryear NBA player, skills, then add HORSE, and then have Knockout for everyone who's left out.
Or hell, how entertaining would it be to have a 24-man game of Knockout populated completely with NBA All-Stars?
I'm sure the Players' Association would put up a fight: most stars prefer to show off their fashion on the sidelines these days. But if we could get them on board, we could do a few things for the bigs:
- Outlet pass competition: bigs have to hit large, moving targets 50-80 ft away. Kinda like a QB competition.
- some sort of post-up 1-on-1 game for the bigs (e.g., you get the ball on the block + two dribbles)
- (my personal fave) Big Man 3PT shooting contest: for starting bigs who attempt < 1 3PT/game. No role-playing backup stretch 5s allowed.
BTW, didn't they used to have a bench press competition back in the day? I dunno if it was part of All-Star Weeknd or not, but I remember Kevin Willis would win (partly because he was diesel; partly because he had alligator arms and had to do less work). Our own Robert Pack even won the competition one year, if memory serves. Anyway, I'm sure folks wouldn't want to max out and tear a pec, but a "most reps @ 185 lbs" like they do at the combine should be fairly harmless -- although it probably wouldn't make for good TV.
Always remember, my friend: the world will change again. And you may have to come back through everywhere you've been.
