Dear Ballineurope readers, sorry for the delay, after some technical difficulties I am finally able to give you some insights on the All Star Weekend 2008. Please let me know what you think and feel free to ask any questions you might have about the weekend …
The weekend traditionally kicked off with the Rookie-Sophomore Game, an event meant to showcase the league’s up-and-coming players to the (casual) fans around the world. A nice little concept which should get the youngsters to really turn it on and going at each other for the bragging rights. After all, the vast majority of them do not belong to the NBA’s most recognizable stars and are seldomly shown on national television – neither in the States nor in Europe.
Like I said, it’s a nice concept, theoretically, which could potentially pit against each other rooks and sophs, who battled in college as well as internationals who’ve might come across the US kids in international competitions in the past. Motivation to win should be plenty. Theoretically, anyway …
Unfortunately the Rookie-Sophomore Game has evolved into a sloppy dunkathon over the years with the second year players whupping the fresh faces on a regular basis. Friday’s “contest”, an 136:109 beatdown of the rooks, only reinforced this trend …
So how did the Euros fare? Well, during warm-ups neither Andrea Bargnani, nor Juan Carlos Navarro really stood out. I know, it’s kinda hard to make a name for yourself during warm-ups, but while the US-born players were exciting the crowd with dunks, which put last years Slam Dunk Contest to shame the guys form the old world chose to heave three-pointers at the basket or lazily laying the Spalding up, better not to get caught with insufficient hops. Jamario Moon, on the other hand … Even though I put my money on Dwight Howard beforehand, I gotta flip-flop on my prediction, Jamario Moon will win the SDC tonight, hands down. This guy is the closest to Vince Carter I have ever seen. His jams while doing his job on the layup line were just incredible and as Jamario later told me “there’s much more to come on Saturday! You haven’t seen one of the dunks I will do, yet!”
Speaking of dunks. Bargnani had one right of the bat exploding to the hoop and flushing it down, before any American could take to the air. The Italian took surprisingly many shots during the first quarter (and almost none afterwards), but seemed at times like he was trying to hard, even taking a shot, with one foot inside and the other outside the three-point line. He missed all of the three shots he tried from downtown – the worst shot in basketball …
On the rookie side Juan Carlos Navarro was the only guy on both squads at least trying and subsequently bringing some ballhandling and passing flavor into the game. While none of the Americans broke out any – in this game much appreciated – crossovers or no-look-passes, Navarro dished, dribbled and even let his famous “La Bomba” go a couple of times during the later stages of the game.
So let’s see: The Euros missed all of their threes but brought some streetball. The US again overly worshipped the dunk, Jamario Moon can fly, the rookies got schooled and no one really cared.
Some N’Awlins beads …
- After listening for the umpteenth time to the US and Canadian anthem before the game, I wonder, if David Stern will really get Europe five NBA teams, will we have to stand through seven national anthems or will the league just compose a medley?
- Yao has finally been Americanized, he dresses like a forty year-old American, white turtleneck sweater neatly tucked in his pants …
- By the way: The whole lower level of the New Orleans arena was filled with screaming high school kids. The “regular folks” sat up in the upper nose bleed level. It’s the All Star Weekend’s dirty little secret, that hardly any tickets are really sold to the local fans, which contributes to rather dead crowds all from Friday to Sunday – well unless the Fan Patrol is shooting t-shirts into the crowd or Ne-Yo shows up. The singer got by far the biggest ovation when he was introduced during one timeout promotion. The decibel level reached hazardous levels, with the kids – well at least those who didn’t feint – screaming on the top of their lungs, stomping their feet …
