Krypto-Nate!

I like the NBA's all-star weekend as much as the next guy but sometimes I think the festivities run a little long. The actual NBA all-star game in on Sunday but there's a plenty of other stuff. The celebrity game is on Friday, plus the Rookie-Sophomore game. Saturday is slightly more interesting with the D-League All-Star game, the new-for-2009 HORSE challenge and a bunch of other lame stuff, like the Shooting Stars competition (which is basically a way for the NBA to shoehorn WNBA players into all-star weekend), the point guard skills challenge, the 3-point shoot out and the dunk challenge.

Quite honestly, I hate it all. It's all showy and lame, especially the dunk competition. But despite my intense dislike for it, I never miss the dunk contest. I have to admit, last year's competition with Dwight Howard was a lot of fun so even though I didn't expect much, I had slightly better expectations for this year.

Those expectations went out the window when Rudy Fernandez got hosed. Basically it was obvious that the judges were setting up a finals with the 7'1" Dwight Howard and the 5'9" Nate Robinson so Rudy and J.R. "The Human Tattoo" Smith never had a chance. It was also obviously that the dunks themselves don't really matter anymore and what does are the theatrics that go into said dunks. Last year, Dwight established himself as the NBA's new Superman (sorry, Shaq). And how do you stop Superman? With kryptonite, of couse. So Nate transformed himself into..... Krypto-Nate! Complete with a custom green Knicks uniform and ball.

And really, Nate's final dunk over Dwight Howard.....

.....was awesome.

And you know, as a Laker fan, I'm really glad all-star weekend is over. Frankly, I was tired of the media's talking heads over-hyping the "reunion" of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal. After years of being a dick, Shaq basically came out and said that he never had a problem with Kobe and it was all "marketing." To his credit, Kobe kind of went along with it. Now, I'm not really a Kobe fan but I understand that he's the Lakers' franchise so while I don't like the guy, I never developed the ire for him that I have for Shaq. Watching Shaq do a total 180 regarding the Lakers was especially grating.

I'm actually glad that he and Kobe were named co-MVPs because really, that's as sugary as you can get. The only place you can go from there is down. So great, with all the sweetness and light bullshit out of the way, everyone can go back to hating each other again. Hooray!