The East "beat" the West last night in the NBA All-Star "Game" by the absurd score of 211-186, and now folks in the Great Cloud Of The Interwhosis have their boxers in a bunch about what a joke it was.
Why, even Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe, grand pasha of NBA media that he is, was spluttering about how if you weren't "personally offended by this disgraceful farce, you don't love or understand basketball." Which is a weird thing to say for someone who clearly does love and understand basketball, and so ought to know about All-Star games.
A "disgraceful farce"?
Well, hell, yes, it was a disgraceful farce. What, you thought you were gonna see Game 7 between Bird and Magic?
Every All-Star game to some extent is a disgraceful farce these days, because every major sport long ago became a Product. They're nothing but entertainment vehicles now, with the sport part relevant only because the entertainment part is built around it. And it's been that way since teams started paying players entertainer money and not just athlete money.
That's made them more financial asset than worker bee, because without them there is no Product. The Kansas City Chiefs, for instance, invest in Patrick Mahomes the same way tech companies invest in, well, technology. It keeps the Product viable and the bottom line pleasingly plump.
And so of course they don't want their investments squandered on some glitzy empty-calorie extravaganza. Of course they don't want their assets damaged in meaningless All-Star Games, just as the assets themselves don't want to get damaged.
That's why the NFL Pro Bowl is now a flag football game. And it's why -- gasp -- no one plays a lick of defense in the NBA All-Star Game, because it's just an exhibition, and who wants to tear an Achilles playing lockdown D in an exhibition?
And so, yeah, everyone jogged up and down the floor unimpeded last night, and hoisted a scandalous number of threes (168 between the two teams) while making a ridiculous 67 of them. Your game MVP, Damian Lillard, scored 39 points, jacking 26 shots in 28 minutes and making 11 of 23 from behind the arc -- sometimes from well behind the arc.
You couldn't call it basketball, exactly. But then it wasn't supposed to be, remember?
No, as is every All-Star extravaganza, it was entertainment, a celebration of the Product. Think Ford or GM rolling out their new lines at some big-deal auto show, and you've pretty much got the vibe.
Which means whining about it is like whining about Captain Crunch having too much sugar. It's supposed to have too much sugar. That's the point. And so it's point-less (and stupid, really) to complain about it.
"But it's not basketball!" you're saying now, for the umpteenth time.
Exactly.
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