Mark Cuban demonstrated admirable adversity in the face of having no basketball skills or athleticism, but really gave a better account of himself than any of Chris Mullin, Rick Fox and Robert Horry (who shall henceforth be known as Robert Horry +20%). One might expect them to provide some capable scoring, given their respective NBA jumpshooting pedigrees, but the physical demands of millionaire retirement have clearly wrecked their shooting forms. All have become slow-plodding defensive anchors.
Chris Tucker and Common were late arrivals due to incredible amounts of Texas snow. Their eventual appearance calmed the crowd, many of whom were despairing and advocating cancelling All-Star Weekend altogether. As a stress-dissipating sideshow, various NBA guys were inexplicably dragooned into trying to rope a mechanical calf, a sight so bizarre it resembles a bad Family Guy cutaway (they'd wanted the players to sit on the fake horse, too):
"Hey Melo, you coming to dinner?"
"Yeah alright, but first I got to lasso this mechanical calf."
"What?"
"What?"
Chris Paul, Pau Gasol, Rajon Rondo and Carmelo Anthony all flailed around in uniformly weak efforts, but it did give Melo one of the quotes of the weekend:
Stu Scott: "I can't believe you grew up in Baltimore, and never did any lassoing?"
Carmelo: "Nah - we see a rope like that, we run!"
As expected, Terrell Owens was getting up for alley-oops and dunks with a fair bit of athleticism, a quality these NFL guys occasionally have. I noticed he was playing a bit like Tyrus Thomas, in the 'raw, unrefined, directionless explosions of athleticism' sense. That was, until TO spotted an opening in the low post, unleashed a tight spin-move around his defender, and dunked - his basketball IQ was clearly somewhat superior to poor Tyrus. Still, we now know that receiving passes in the endzone and catching alley-oops are surprisingly transferable skills. So maybe Tyrus was in the wrong sport all along.
Thankfully, the East pulled out an important 41-37 win. Both teams shot 20%, turned the ball over every ten seconds, played no defense, and generally did their best impressions of the New Jersey Nets. Strangely, Brian Scalabrine claimed MVP honours, but by then I was too distressed to query anything, just wanting it to all be over.
As expected, Terrell Owens was getting up for alley-oops and dunks with a fair bit of athleticism, a quality these NFL guys occasionally have. I noticed he was playing a bit like Tyrus Thomas, in the 'raw, unrefined, directionless explosions of athleticism' sense. That was, until TO spotted an opening in the low post, unleashed a tight spin-move around his defender, and dunked - his basketball IQ was clearly somewhat superior to poor Tyrus. Still, we now know that receiving passes in the endzone and catching alley-oops are surprisingly transferable skills. So maybe Tyrus was in the wrong sport all along.
Thankfully, the East pulled out an important 41-37 win. Both teams shot 20%, turned the ball over every ten seconds, played no defense, and generally did their best impressions of the New Jersey Nets. Strangely, Brian Scalabrine claimed MVP honours, but by then I was too distressed to query anything, just wanting it to all be over.
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