Since All-Star Weekend has past us, let’s look back on what happened. It took place the weekend of Presidents’ Day, February 16th-18th 2024, in Indianapolis, Indiana, after 2021’s Indianapolis game was postponed because of the pandemic. The weekend events were spread across the Pacers and Colts stadium while also being held at the Indiana Convention Center. The All-Star Game itself returned to the old format of East v. West and a full 4 quarters instead of team captains choosing teams and the game having target scores.
Some of the biggest talking points before and from the weekend came from Jalen Brunson becoming a first time all-star after his phenomenal season so far, where he has averaged 27.6 points and 6.5 assists per game. In terms of snubs, the big debate came from Domantas Sabonis and De’Aaron Fox not being included while Karl-Anthony Towns (KAT) made the cut. When you compare the stats at face value, Sabonis was snubbed and you could even say Fox was overlooked while he was averaging 27 points and 2 steals a game at the time. In my opinion, I understand why KAT was included because he has helped his team do well, but I would have gone with Sabonis.
Here’s how All-Star Weekend went, starting off with the celebrity game as the first event on Friday. It was Team Shannon Sharpe v. Team Stephen A. Smith and the teams included players such as Jennifer Hudson, Kai Cenat, Micah Parsons and CJ Stroud. Parsons had a monster game for Team Shannon scoring 37 points and grabbing 16 rebounds as they would go on to win 100-91.
The Rising Stars games were a 4 team, three game tournament. Each game was set to a target score of either 40 or 25 (25 in the final). The first game was Team Jalen Rose v. Team Tamika Catchings which pit the No. 1 and 2 overall picks in the 2022 draft (Banchero and Chet) against each other, but it was Mathurin of the Pacers who stole the show with 18 points and the game winner. The other game included Team Detlef Schrempf (the G League team) against Team Pau Gasol which included Wembanyama and it was the shock of the tournament as Team Detlef won 41-36. Team Jalen would take care of business, though, in the final, winning 26-13 against Team Detlef and Mathurin would win MVP of the tournament.
In the Skills Challenge it would come down between Team Pacers and Team All-Stars after the Pacers won the first 2 rounds but the all-stars won the 3rd round worth the most points. In the half-court shot tiebreaker, the Pacers would win after Haliburton scored their shot in quicker time than the all-stars.
In the 3 point contest, Damian Lillard would beat out Young and KAT in the final round as he hit his final shot to win it and become the first back-to-back winner of the contest since 2008.
Steph Curry v. Sabrina Ionescu was the first ever NBA vs WNBA 3-point contest ever. The contest was from the NBA 3-point line rather than the WNBA line, which is what Sabrina wanted to do. It started with her going first and putting up 26 points, but then Steph in his turn catching fire at the right moment and defeating Sabrina 29-26.
In the dunk contest, Mac McClung would steal the show again beating out Jaylen Brown in the final and becoming a back-to-back champion.
In the All-Star game it was West v. East, with the East scoring a record 211 points and winning 211-186. Haliburton started the game on fire with 5 3s in less than two minutes. Lillard would end up winning the game MVP, but it was KAT for the West who also stole the show with 50 points.
In my opinion the weekend was decent, and it was nice to see it in Indy, but we always like to return to regular season games.
