From Friday Feb. 17 – Sun Feb. 19 the NBA celebrated their All-Stars in Salt Lake City.
We took the time out to celebrate these NBA stars who display their talent every day on the court.
On Friday, February 17th all star weekend started. It started with the well known celebrity game where a bunch of celebrities come onto the NBA court and put their talents on display. The celebrities get broken down into two teams.
First, we had team Ryan lead by their captain Ryan Smith who is the Utah Jazz owner. On his team he had Diamond DeSheilds who is an WNBA All-Star, Calvin Johnson who played in the NFL, Albert Pujols who had played in the MLB, the famous Guillermo Rodriguez from Jimmy Kimmel Live! and many more.
Then we had team Wade. Captained by Dwayne Wade a 3 time NBA champion with the Miami Heat and now he is minority owner. On his team he had DK Metcalf who is an NFL superstar, rapper 21 savage, tennis star Frances Tiafoe, Alex Toussaint aong others.
As all the stars had fun competing, Team Wade came away with the win over Team Ryan.
Afer a monster dunk, NFL Player DK Metcalf came away with the MVP trophy after scoring 20 points.
On Saturday, February 18th we had moved on to one of the most exciting nights of NBA all star weekend.
First, the night started with the KIA skills challenge.
First it was Team Antetokounmpo which had Giannis “Greek Freak” , and his two brothers Thanasis, and Alex. Due to injury Giannis was unable to participate so his teammate from the Bucks Jrue Holiday joined the team.
Then the rookies. On the rookie team it consisted of Paolo Banchero of the Orlando Magic, Jabari Smith Jr of the Houston Rockets, and finally Jaden Ivey of the Detroit Pistons.
Finally, since the All-Star weekend is being held in Salt Lake City they had to put a home team in this contest. On team Jazz it consisted of Collin Sexton, Walker Kessler, and Jordan Clarkson.
In the first round of competition team Antetokounmpo had lost to team Rookies with with a winning time of 1 minute and 14 seconds.
In the second round of competition the home team team Jazz came away with the victory.
Then came the three point contest. This is when all the best 3 point shooters from around the league get invited to see how many 3s they can make in 1:10 through 5 racks of basketballs. Out of all three events that happenes on Saturday night, this has been the fan favorite in recent years.
This year in the contest we had Lauri Markkanen of the Utah Jazz, Julius Randle of the New York Knicks, Buddy Heild and Tyrese Haliburton both of the Indiana Pacers, Tyler hero representing the Miami Heat, Jayson Tatum representing the Boston Celtics, Kevin Huerter of the Sacramento Kings, and finally Damian ” Dame Time” Lillard.
Throughout the first round of shooting Julius Randle had the least amount of points and Haliburton had tied the scoring record in the 3 point contest with the highest score of the night at 31
Going into the championship round it was down to Buddy Heild, Tyrese, and of course Damian Lillard.
Heild got going in the championship round to put up a score of 25 points. Then Damian got going and put up a score of 26. And since Haliburton was the leading scorer in the first round he went last and could never find his rhythm.
As a result Dame time was the champion of this year NBA 3 point contest.
Finally on Saturday night we saw the slam dunk contest.
In this year AT&T Slam dunk contest the participants were Jericho sims of the New York Knicks, Keynon Martin Jr who plays for the Houston Rockets, Trey Murphy the third who was there to represent the New Orleans Pelicans, and Lastly, a G-League representative was there Mac McClung.
McClung stole the show. Many would say that he brought the slam dunk contest back with the performance that he had put on for all the fans. He scored a perfect score of a 50 on 3/4 dunks attempted during the night.
As McClung and Trey Murphy advance to the final round of the slam dunk contest McClung outshined Murphy to bring home the trophy and become the first G-League player to ever win the trophy.
Finally on Sunday is the day that we all have been waiting for, the NBA All-Star Game.
This years captains were of course Lebron “The King” James and Giannis “Greek Freak” Antetokounmpo. They were named captains from the most fans votes from both conferences. Coaches were Michael Malone of the Denver Nuggets for “Team Lebron”and Joe Mazzulla of the Boston Celtics for “Team Giannis”.
LeBron James is 5-0 while being a captain and the greek freak is 0-2. So there was a lot of talk in how he was going to plan to get Lebrons team.
Since the new format “playground style” the captain picking teams they would do it on national TV and do a draft the captains can pick players from different conferences.
But this year, on the day of the game, we didn’t know who was on what team until 30 min prior to the game. All the reserves and starters was introduced like normal and then both captains had started picking teams.
Since LeBron James had the most fan votes he got first pick for the starters. But they went by picking the reserves first so Giannis had the first pick of the reserves, and his first pick was Dame Lillard. Then Lebron went and picked up Jaylen Brown.
As a result for starters Lebron picked up his best friend Kyrie Irving, Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic. Antetokounmpo had picked up Jayson Tatum, Ja Morant, Donovan Mitchell and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
So basically the way the works is that these all Stars is playing for their designated charity. Team Lebron is playing for Big Brothers Big Sisters, and team Giannas is playing for Raise the future.
So the way it works is that each charity starts off with $150,000 dollars then whoever is winning at the end of each quarter is going to get an additional $100,000 for their charity.
In the first quarter both teams took turns showing off their talents, with dunks, shooting 3s and all. At the end of the first quarter Kyrie was the leading scorer and the score was tied at 46. So both charities had received $50,000 dollars.
In the second half it was more of the same Dame time caught fire towards the end and made sure they won the quarter for their charity winning them $100,000.
Besides all the halftime activities, During halftime his best friend had came onto stage and honored LeBron James for breaking the scoring record. They also mentioned that Karl Malone was the first person to have it then it was Kareem and now Lebron.
In the third quarter of the all star game Jayson Tatum had went off for 27 points to give team Giannis the lead. Also Mitchell hit 2 threes from the logo during this quarter.
Also In the third quarter teammates that were on opposite team Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum went back and fourth scoring on each other.
In the fourth quarter they took the score and made a target score of 182 to determine a winner. Team LeBron tried to come back with a contribution from Kyrie Irving and Joel Embiid. But then of course the one and only Damion Lillard hit a three pointer to close the game.
As a result Jayson Tatum now holds the most points in an NBA all star game passing Anthony Davis who previously had the record at 52 points.