PHOTO: B/R
The Game That Forgot to Compete
NBA All-Star Weekend.
A spectacle. A tradition. A goddamn mess.
I love Kyrie’s handles. The way he moves—it’s like watching a con man work a room, slipping past defenders with ease. Steph? A sniper. Cold-blooded. Wemby? The kid’s a skyscraper with footwork like a back-alley dancer. But then—then the effort disappears. Poof. Gone. Like a wiseguy who talked too much.
LeBron. The King. The legend. Near the end now, slipping out the side door without so much as a nod. No grand send-off, no heir apparent. Just fading, like an old gambler who lost his last hand.
The dunk contest? I’ll give it that. It’s still got juice. But Saturday night? That’s when you want to see the real players, the heavy hitters. And instead, we get… what? Star-studded no-shows. A crime, really.
And the game itself? Jesus. Too many stoppages. Too many whistles. A structure so loose it might as well be a mob operation. The defense? Nonexistent. Like asking a wiseguy to file his taxes properly. And don’t get me started on the Starry bricks—more clanks than a Myles Turner Lego convention.
Passion? Yeah, I got it. Always have. But I wish Ant had it too. Wish he put on the shoes, stepped onto the court, made us believe.
And in the end, amidst all the nonsense, the bad calls, the inflated ticket prices, the ghosts of what this weekend used to be… one truth remains.
There’s still room for Gelo.
– Bumper Robinson | Senior NBA Columnist for TheNSR Network
