All-Star Weekend

Things got off to a good start last night with the celebrity game on ESPN and rookie-sophomore game on TNT. The Sophomores won again (for the 6th straight year) and Daniel Gibson hit 11 treys en route to 33pts and the MVP trophy. Tonight is when most of the festivities occur however. Before I get to that, there's another potential trade on the cusp of being completed.

As we've seen with Dallas/New Jersey though, nothing is finished until the actual players report to their new teams. This deal is definitely worth talking about though, even though it is still pending. The suggested trade is between the Sacramento Kings and Atlanta Hawks involving guard Mike Bibby and 4 expiring contracts on the side of Atlanta. It's definitely an interesting deal since the Kings know they've got a proven starting floor general in Beno Udrih, who they've discovered can play at a high level given the minutes (he's also going to be the chief benefactor if this deal goes through, which I hope does because I've picked him up in ALL my leagues already). Atlanta gets the starting point guard who can hit big shots and take a ton of pressure off of Joe Johnson, who needs to focus mainly as a scorer (he's only shooting 40% from the field currently). With Bibby, I would expect Johnson's assist numbers to dip a bit, but his FG% will undoubtedly increase for the rest of the season. The Hawks are showing they are serious about making the playoffs after a long hiatus, while the Kings are looking forward to some huge salary relief this offseason to potentially sign some impact players for next season. The deal makes sense, although I have to wonder if the Kings could have gotten one prospect or player that has some value other than an expiring deal. Ironically enough, the Hawks are on the cusp of the playoffs in the East at 21-28 (tied with 8th seed Philadelphia), while the Kings are 23-28 and 8.5 games out of the 8th spot. That's some good parity between the two conferences.

Now for Saturday night, it should be a decent dunk contest with 3 freak athletic wings (Gerald Green, Jamario Moon and Rudy Gay) countered by the 'freak', Dwight Howard, but honestly I'm not that excited about it. There's no anticipated event quite like the Barkley/Bavetta race of last February. A couple of randoms as well I thought I might as well throw out there. I know that the NBA wants to support the WNBA, but the "Shooting Stars" contest needs to go. It's utterly useless and no one enjoys watching it (save for maybe a few people). They could go with a H-O-R-S-E contest and use WNBA players then (props to THE Sports Guy, Bill Simmons, for the idea) and that would be a legitimately fun event to watch or just use different events and cycle them in and out every few years. They can go with a "shooting stars" event, but then a race or something different the next season. Something unique every season and bring back older events once people have forgotten about them. This way people can be surprised from season to season and more interested in the events that aren't as traditional (like the 3-point shootout and Dunk contest). Hopefully TNT will do something though for tonight to be exciting. I'll be tuning in and out the whole night.