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Thursday, February 14
 
All-Star weekend is fun, but boring

By Peter May
Special to ESPN.com

The Super Bowl is over. The Winter Olympics are starting. In between these two mega-events, stuck like a moth between two very large flames, is the NBA All-Star Game.
Stephon Marbury
Marbury and Bryant gave their best in last year's All-Star game.

The league's annual sponsor showcase -- please, we all know by now that is not about the game -- takes place this year in Philadelphia. On a scale of meaningful All-Star Games -- if, in fact, that is not a contradiction in terms -- this one falls somewhere between the NHL All-Star Game and Notre Dame's spring Blue and Gold game.

Somewhere along the way, the All-Star Game ceased being about basketball. (How long before we have the game actually sponsored?) That is why, if you put a Bible under the hand of every participant, he'd say he'd rather be somewhere else and his nose wouldn't grow. We're already getting that message loud and clear from Shaq.) You'll hear the All-Stars say All The Right Things about it being an honor and looking forward to the parties, er, events. But, in reality, they'd all rather be on some Caribbean beach for a few days and, truth be told, their teams would be better off if they were there as well. These guys are all whipped.

But there will be a game on Sunday night, not to mention the All-Star Saturday events, which includes another Slam Dunk Contest featuring Steve Francis and the No Names. (Why Francis is participating is a mystery. The guy missed a bunch of games this season with a foot injury and now he doesn't know if his head is going to explode on any given day with a migraine headache. He needs the Slam Dunk about as much as he needs another forehead.)

Francis is also starting for the Western Conference team, which, for the most part, is the All-Star Team. That figures given that the four best teams -- some might say five -- are in the Western Conference. (Sorry, Nets.) The problem with the All-Star Game, however, is that it caters to the individual dynamos, which means the Michael Jordans and Allen Iversons are showcased moreso than the fundamentally sound Tim Duncan.

The West has the best big guys, which means, usually, that someone from the West will win the NBA title. (Unless, of course, we have a repeat of the 1991 Finals between the Lakers and the Bulls.) But while big is usually better in the tough, playoff grind, it is almost a detriment in the free-flowing, anything-goes All-Star Game. Just look at last year's game.

Four players from the victorious Eastern Conference hit double figures. They were all guards or small forwards: Allen Iverson, Vince Carter, Stephon Marbury and Ray Allen. Their starting center, for goodness sakes, was Antonio Davis, who was a commissioner's addition. Anthony Mason started at power forward.

The East trailed by 21 points in the fourth quarter until Iverson and Marbury started firing away and brought them back. Marbury hit two 3-pointers in the final minute to win the game. The one legit big man in the East, the Hawks' Dikembe Mutombo, had 22 rebounds. Soon thereafter, a smitten Larry Brown made him a Sixer.

As All-Star Games go, it wasn't bad. For awhile there in the fourth quarter, it actually appeared that at least one team was trying to win the game. Not with defense, mind you. That would be almost historic. No, the East ripped off 41 points in the fourth quarter to win 111-110.

This year's game looks like it's heading in the same direction. Once again the West has all the bigs, with Shaquille O'Neal, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett starting along with reserves Chris Webber, Karl Malone, Predrag Stojakovic and Dirk Nowitzki. The 6-9 Stojakovic is the smallest of that bunch.

The East, meanwhile, will have Mutombo in the middle and Jermaine O'Neal coming off the bench and, well, a lot of little guys or guys who play like little guys. (As Bill Walton once said, "anything under 6-10 is small.") Their starting power forward is Antoine Walker, who really is a shooting guard in a four-man's body and, if he played in the West, might not even get on the All-Star ballot. (OK, that's an exaggeration. But he would have a hard time making the team.) Walker leads the league in 3-point attempts with 400 in 49 games and is on a pace where he'll come awful close to breaking George McCloud's NBA record for one season (678.) Four of the top seven most prolific 3-point hoisters are on the East team: Walker, Paul Pierce (No. 2), Ray Allen (No. 4) and Vince Carter (No. 7.)

We also have the top five gunners in the league (field goal attempts) on the East in Iverson, Carter, Michael Jordan, Walker and Pierce. Throw in Tracy McGrady and you have six out of the top eight. They like to shoot and that is what All-Star games are all about: shooting and scoring.

The All-Star Game caters to those specialties, as it should. And that is why the East will always have a chance in February, when the outcome is irrelevant, and next-to-none in June, when it really matters. If they played this game like a real, honest-to-goodness NBA game, you know, one where no one scores for six-odd minutes and guys actually play defense on occasion, it wouldn't be a contest. The interior might of the Western Conference would be too much to overcome for the razzle-dazzlers from the East, even with the addition of the cerebral Jason Kidd, who single-handedly has transformed New Jersey.

The bottom line is that the players will go through the motions, try to avoid injury, and then settle back into the regular NBA routines for the final 30-something games remaining. They'll look back on a weekend where they are whisked around in limos and fawned over by everyone. (In other words, just like their normal lives.) We'll see NBC cameras for the last time at an All-Star Game and the usual abundance of foreign journalists, whose editors still haven't figured out that is a four-day junket. Maybe the game will even put its own stamp on All-Star history, although that is third class mail in this day and age.

The Super Bowl meant something. The Olympics mean something (at least they do the competitors and their families.) The All-Star game is just there. It's the NBA's excuse to have a big party and they do it up well. But that's about as far as we should take it. Chances are, a year from now, few people will even remember what happened.

Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.





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