Court Sense: An unwatchable All-Star

Boston Globe

18-02-2025

I don't know about you all, but I really was willing to give the NBA's new All-Star format a chance.
Unfortunately, the execution was an absolute
disaster
.
Here are, in no particular order, my four biggest complaints from Sunday's All-Star Game:
1. My God, the number of ad breaks.
Advertisement
2. What was with all the random asides? Why did we spend several minutes on watching MrBeast — who, if you are not either a.) the parent or grandparent of a child under the age of 12, or b.) yourself a child under the age of 12, you may not know is the most subscribed-to creator on YouTube — host a $100,000 contest between games? Why does YouTube's most famous man have no idea how to host said contest,
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
3. Speaking of asides, whose idea was it to do a
in the middle
of the championship game?
The championship was off to an 11-1 start for Team Shaq over Team Candace before we cut to commercial, wasted 10 minutes on whatever that nonsense was, went
back
to commercial, and
Advertisement
Please keep Kevin Hart away from my All-Star Game (and away from my TV, and away from me, in general, please).
Jed Jacobsohn/Associated Press
4. I said no particular order, but this is absolutely my biggest: for reasons unknown, the NBA allowed Kevin Hart, a man whose comedic relevance expired when his general schtick got old sometime around 2014, to hijack the All-Star Game to an extremely uncomfortable degree.
Hart was on the microphone, with his words broadcast through the in-arena PA system — that is, the players could hear him — just openly criticizing the All-Stars. I'm sure it was supposed to be funny, but seeing as this was a basketball game and not a roast on Comedy Central, it fell spectacularly flat.
The lowlight of the entire evening came
It was, even relative to recent years of the NBA All-Star Game, unwatchable.
The players share some blame in the game's decline over the years, but after being asked over and over to take it seriously, their participation turned into a joke,
Anyway, my personal highlight of the night: With his team a point away from sealing the championship, Stephen Curry slowly walked the ball up the court, taking in the applause of a standing ovation at his home arena in San Francisco, the All-Star Game MVP in the bag and ready to close the game out, and ...
Incredible hater behavior from the refs. Joe Mazzulla would be proud.
Advertisement
Okay, enough complaining. Let's get into it.
ICYMI 🗞️
The Intuit Dome has been a hit with players and fans.
Harry How/Getty
The Clippers' Intuit Dome is a spectacular creation and fan experience. Could that happen in Boston for the Celtics?
By Gary Washburn
When opposing players are asked about the Intuit Dome, often they take deep breaths and offer a laundry list of what they admire about the NBA's sparkling new venue. The visiting locker room is considered the league's most spacious and accommodating, and that's intentional.
One of Clippers owner Steve Ballmer's visions for this jewel was to make a lasting impression on players in the league, perhaps thinking if the visiting locker room is this lavish, then what about that home locker room?
It took 10 years for the Intuit Dome to transform from an idea to a reality and it's the league's model facility. The 915,000-square-foot arena that cost $2 billion could have an impact on the long-term residence of the Celtics.
Continue reading
Other top stories we're watching ...
Oh, in case you were wondering, Team Shaq's 'OGs' featuring Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown took home the All-Star crown on Sunday.
As the Celtics return from the break this week,
Tatum and Brown's All-Star (and former Celtics) teammate Kyrie Irving seems to finding his way in Dallas.
Trivia Tuesday 🧠
Each week, we'll be asking a piece of Celtics trivia to test your knowledge on the 18-time champions.
Congratulations to Steve Markman of Needham, the first person to correctly answer last week's question. As a refresher, we asked you to name which current NBA franchise has a winning all-time head-to-head record against the Celtics.
The answer is the
San Antonio Spurs
, who have an all-time record of 58-46 against Boston since joining the NBA in the 1976 merger. Every other current NBA franchise has a losing record against the Celtics, with the Timberwolves posting the worst mark at 22-47.
Boston's best mark against any team is a 2-0 record against the Anderson Packers, an extremely short-lived outfit that played just one NBA season in 1949-50. On the opposite end are the Chicago Stags, who went 20-3 against the Celtics before acquiring the rights to Bob Cousy and promptly folding, allowing Cousy to head to Boston in the resulting dispersal draft.
Advertisement
I think Red Auerbach got over those losses to the Stags, considering what they gifted him in the end.
Gregg Popovich (left) and the Spurs have had plenty of success against the Celtics.
Darren Abate/Associated Press
Anyway, here's this week's question. The Celtics' 23 retired jersey numbers can make it tricky for new players to snag a number they want.
What is the lowest Celtics jersey number that is not either retired by the franchise
or
currently in use by a player?
(Answer will be as of this writing on Tuesday, Feb. 18, in case the Celtics, I don't know, trade Jayson Tatum and suddenly free up No. 0 or something.)
Know the answer? Send us an email at
This week in basketball
Okay, since I was very negative about the NBA All-Star Game earlier, I will be very positive about one aspect of it, even though nothing about it reflected well on the NBA.
Spurs star and
Now, those of you familiar with Paul's work over the years know that he's a man to leverage the rulebook to his advantage, whether through
Advertisement
So should we
really
have been surprised when a team involving Paul tried to bend the rules to win a meaningless Skills Challenge?
In case you don't know (which, why would you?), the NBA's Skills Challenge is the first event on All-Star Saturday night where teams of two run through a timed obstacle course involving dribbling, passing, and shooting.
But what the Spurs duo worked out was that the shooting portion didn't actually
require
you to make the shots.
So when Wembanyama and Paul approached the racks with three balls apiece, they just tossed the balls in the general direction of the basket instead of actually trying to shoot, saving several precious seconds.
Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama were disqualified from the Skills Challenge at NBA All-Star Weekend on Saturday.
Godofredo A. Vásquez/Associated Press
Was it cheating? Was it smart strategy? Was it the sort of rule-bending that Bill Belichick would have been proud of?
Anyway, funny as it was, the NBA took a rather dim view of the tactic, and the two were promptly disqualified.
Now, in their defense, Wembanyama supposedly asked several folks from the NBA if this particular strategy was allowed, and was told that it was (keep in mind, this account is coming from
But, nope, they were out, and frankly were sort of chastised by some random NBA staffer,
Leave it to the NBA to take one of the only fun moments of the weekend (far funnier than anything Kevin Hart offered up, it must be said), take themselves far too seriously, and make it a little awkward instead.
Also,
So, All-Star Weekend wasn't all bad. It was
mostly
bad, but not all.
Up next 🏀
After that horrid All-Star Weekend, the Celtics are mercifully back to basketball on Thursday against the 76ers (7:00 p.m., TNT).
This story first appeared in Court Sense, a biweekly Celtics newsletter from Boston Globe Sports.
Amin Touri can be reached at