Sports the other press Jordan Cripps Sports Editor If there's anything worse than the NHL All-Star Weekend, it’s the version put on by the NBA. I really like bas- ketball and certainly think that there is a lot of talent in the NBA that could be displayed, but for me, an admitted sports traditionalist, the whole week- end seems fraudulent. For some reason the sport of basket- ball has shifted away from being a team sport to being a sport that is all about individual match-ups. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the annual All- Star game. Unlike any other sport, the dominance of one player seems to dic- tate how well a team does. For exam- ple, the Lakers have Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. Shaq is such a dom- inating player that the Lakers (as was proved earlier this season) would never win a game without him. If they lost Bryant, though, they may suffer a few more losses, but the team will still have success. Every other player on the Lakers is just there to occasionally fill in for Shaq or Bryant when they're hurt or need a break. There’s no real sense of team. This really hit home for me during the rising stars game on Saturday when I saw players trying to run from one end of the court to the http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca other, determined to show off their skills. Another problem with the NBA reared its ugly head during this game. Watching these players, it was really apparent that many of them couldn't hit a jump shot to save their lives. Then one of them would leap into the air, soaring from the foul line with a monstrous dunk and I realized why. Many of the younger players seem to believe that it is more important to be able to do a fancy dunk than it is to be able to hit a mid-range jump shot. While the dunk gets fans out of their seats, the jump shot is what will win games and championships. Obviously, this is not true of all players. Yao Ming and Dirk Nowitski are two examples of young players that have been trained to work on their fundamentals rather than on the crowd-pleasing theatrics. I guess I’m just not a fan of skills competitions. This year, the NBA unveiled a number of new competi- tions, each more frightful than the last. First, there was some sort of an obsta- cle course where the NBA's top point guards ran through a course, passing a ball through hoops and making lay- ups. This one wasn’t actually too bad since it demonstrated skills that a play- er might actually have to rely on dur- ing a game. From there, though, it just got silly. There was a 4-on-4 “game” featuring two WNBA players, Malcolm in the Middle’s Frankie Muniz, Ashton Kutcher of Dude, Wheres My Car’, Dominique Wilkins, and a portly Magic Johnson. This was just painful and I spent the entire game howling with laughter. The Three-Point Competition does test player's abilities to shoot the ball, but really, how often will a player be that open to take a three-point shot? Finally, they got to my least favourite event, the Slam Dunk Challenge. I don’t actually hate dunks, but I like them when they happen in the course of a game where a player has to work to get the opportunity. That certainly doesn't happen during the competi- tion. Every year, players seem to do the same thing since there is very little that hasn't been done yet. It’s just not that interesting to watch them and see what they come up with. Again, all of these skills competitions isolate the player’s individual abilities rather than looking at the way they fit in with the team concept. February 12, 2003 NBA All-Star Weekend Reveals NBA Flaws classifieds Students advertise for free! 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