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We’re a
few days from the NBA All-Star Game and I’m not feeling
the love. I’m not sensing that people, even real pro
basketball fans, are dying to see it. Oh, they’re down
for the All-Star Weekend parties, for hanging out in the
French Quarter, for craziness up and down Bourbon
Street, for supper at Emeril’s. But the game itself?
It’s, shall we say, a little stale. As a matter of fact,
the least exciting thing about All-Star Weekend is the
All-Star Game.
So, free
of consultation charge, I’m about to fix All-Star
Sunday.
Actually, I’ll offer up a choice. First, scrapping the
East vs. West format is a must. It’s tired and
unimaginative and doesn’t promote any real competition.
The whole thing has been reduced to how fancy a pass can
you throw to that guy, and how many degrees can he turn
before dunking. Been there, seen it for 20 years.
Nobody’s going to do it better than Jordan, ’Nique and
Kobe have done it, so why keep at it?
What I
want to see is the best players in the world go at each
other, to play not for show but for pride.
US vs.
the World. That’s the ticket. As recently as 10 years
ago this wouldn’t have fascinated anybody because there
were just a handful of international players and the
game would have been a US walkover.
But not
now. Just like the basketball world championship and the
Summer Olympics, the outcome would be in doubt. Just use
this season as an example. Team USA would have Kobe
Bryant, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade, Chauncey Billups,
Rip Hamilton, Chris Paul and Baron Davis in the
backcourt. LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, David West,
Antawn Jamison, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Caron Butler
and Amare Stoudemire would play forward. Tim Duncan and
Dwight Howard (in the absence of the injured Kevin
Garnett) would be the centers.
That
sounds pretty formidable, right?
Well,
check out the World team, which would start a front line
of seven-foot-six Yao Ming of China, seven-foot Dirk
Nowitzki of Germany and seven-foot Pau Gasol of Spain.
The starting backcourt would be Canada’s Steve Nash,
still the best playmaker in the world, and Argentina’s
Manu Ginobili, who has already beaten the rest of the
world to win an Olympic gold medal.
That
means Frenchman Tony Parker and his three NBA
championship rings would have to come off the bench and
share time with the league’s top sixth man, Brazil’s
Leandro Barbosa. You wouldn’t want to see Iverson vs.
Barbosa in the international speed-demon matchup of all
time?
The
reserve forwards on the international team would be
Serbia‘s Peja Stojakovic, Turkey’s Hedo Turkoglu,
Argentina’s Andres Nocioni, France’s Boris Diaw and
Russia’s Andrei Kirilenko. The Raptors have a number of
international players who would qualify, including
Spain’s Jose Calderon and Italy’s Andrea Bargnani.
Lithuania’s Zydrunas Ilgauskas would back up Yao. There
might not even be room on the World team for
accomplished players such as Sudan’s Luol Deng and
Brazil’s Nene (who are both sidelined), Australia’s
Andrew Bogut, France’s Ronny Turiaf, Latvia’s Andris
Biedrins, Argentina’s Luis Scola, Turkey’s Mehmet Okur
and one of the trailblazing internationals, Congo’s
Dikembe Mutombo.
Best of
all, it would be a game…a real, live, seriously
contested, pride-on-the-line basketball game, with
defense, elbows and trash talk…for real. I dare anybody
to tell me there wouldn’t be. If the NBA was about to
stage this game, there would have been talk about it
constantly for the last two weeks. We see teams admit
they’ve grown stale and spice it up, as the Lakers and
Suns just did; why not the league?
I
realize not everybody wants to dismantle the traditional
East vs. West format. As excited as I get just thinking
about US vs. the World, the three people I talk to most
about pro basketball—Kornheiser (who, despite this
“Monday Night Football” stuff, still knows and cares
more about hoops than he’ll ever know and care about
football), my dear friend Neville and my brother Don—all
tell me they love the free flow and improvisation of the
All-Star Game the way it’s always been, that there’s
something familiar and comfortable about seeing it
played in its traditional format, the way it was played
when Wilt faced Russell, when Magic faced Bird.
While my
position is that that’s the kind of sentiment that has
continually eroded interest (specifically viewership) in
the All-Star Game, I know it’s a sentiment probably
shared throughout the halls of the NBA offices in New
York. And there’s also probably a fear that the
US
vs. the World format would step on Fiba’s toes and take
something away from the already staged international
competitions.
Not to
worry, I have a Plan B. The fans would vote for a total
of 30 all-stars, and the two biggest vote-getters would
pick their own teams. Garnett, the No. 1 vote-getter,
would get the first pick.
James,
the No. 2 vote-getter, would get the second pick....And
back and forth they’d go, like on the playground. So if
KG picked a guy to get him the ball, say Nash, Kobe
might pick a big man, say Howard.
Think
about the buzz that would create, about the alliance and
what we’d find out about what players really think about
the other All-Stars and who they really valued. Once
again, it would be two weeks of buzz preceding the game.
Players would get to do something all of them want to
do: act as general managers. Again, once you pick a
team, pride would be at stake...not like the
international matchup, but more than there is now when
it’s just an exhibition that looks like a pregame
shoot-around more than it does a game.
What the
NBA did when it put All-Star Weekend into place was
breathe life into the festivities, giving fans more than
just the game. If neither the international game nor the
stars picking their own teams don’t work, simply go back
to East vs. West. So what if you had US vs. the World
six times and got tired of it? It’s an exhibition, not
the NBA Finals. The bet here is that the traditional
game, the one we’ll see Sunday night in New Orleans,
might be put on the shelf for quite a long time. |
