2019 NBA All-Star Weekend Review
Charlotte, NC - The Queen City hosts the 68th edition of the NBA’s All-Star Weekend for the second time in history.
NBA’s All-Star Weekend concluded with the All-Star game last night on His Airness birthday. Team LeBron bested Team Giannis 178-164 as Kevin Durant won his second All-Star MVP trophy, scoring 31 points in the contest. The game itself was the typical All-Star games of past with little to no defense till the 4th quarter with the usually crazy highlights to keep fans entertained. Team LeBron was down 20 but came back behind Damian Lillard’s hot hand from three during the middle of the 3rd quarter.
EpiCentre in Uptown Charlotte
Before last night’s game was a weekend full of fun events for the fans to enjoy. The EpiCentre in Uptown Charlotte was decked out for the festivities and provided opportunities for prizes, interactive games, and All-Star apparel from the NBA’s previous All-Star games, including the 1991 game that was hosted by Charlotte. You could also find NBA players roaming around the city and appearing at some of the events like the pop-up Foot Locker store, House of Hoops and Mountain Dew Courtside Studios. Here is a video of Ben Simmons and KAT making an appearance at the NBA Crossover event:
Friday and Saturday night saw to the weekend’s other events: The Rising Stars Challenge and All-Star Saturday night. During the Rising Star challenge, Lakers second-year forward Kyle Kuzma took home the prize of MVP of the game along with a bonus check of $25,000:
All-Star Saturday Night, the best night in my opinion, was for the most part okay. Jayson Tautm took home the Skills Challenge trophy with a miracle shot from half court to beat rookie Trae Young while Joe Harris bested the best shooter in NBA history, Steph Curry, in a shocking upset. Hamidou Diallo from the Thunder won the dunk contest but the contest itself was underwhelming as it was filled with mostly missed attempts and routine dunks. We miss you Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon. The once beloved contest has shifted from some of the big names competing to an opportunity for some of the young talent in the NBA to shine, which is nice but us fans would rather see the top players. We still feel robbed that we never got to see LeBron in the dunk contest. Nevertheless, Saturday night had some buzz (Hornets pun), but it often had fans like me checking NBA Twitter rather than watching the actual contest.
Mint Museum in Uptown Charlotte
Not to just bash this year’s All-Star Weekend, as it had its spot, great ones at that. Seeing Dirk knock down all his three-point attempts, long range bombs at that, while Wade tossed one more alley-oop to ‘Bron was a sight to behold as both legends are to retire at the end of the season. Also, the free events and interactive games for the fans at the EpiCentre was fun to experience. NBA just needs to do better with the format of the events, specifically the main game. Yes, it’s just an exhibition game and the players don’t want to hurt themselves, but always waiting till the closing moments of the 4th quarter to see some actual defense is getting kind of old. The new format with the draft is fun and we get to see interesting team ups like Steph and Giannis executing amazing highlights,
but how about shaking it up with incentives involved, and not just for charities. I like the MLB’s previous incentive for home-field advantage in the World Series, in this case the NBA Finals. I think it would bring competition and importance to the event with the high stakes.
Thank you NBA and it’s partners for this weekend, my first. Now let’s get back to what looks to be an exciting second half of the season.
