Rant #1,611: Fixing Something That I Feel Is Broken

Did anybody out there actually watch the NBA All-Star Game from beginning to end?

The final sendoff to Kobe Bryant's career did well in the ratings, and if you liked offense, this game was as offensive as could be, with several scoring records shattered during the West's 196-173 trouncing of the East.

"Offensive" is the operative word, because quite frankly, the game is a bore, a slam fest where no defense at all is played, as no one wants to get injured during the game or injure someone else.

And because of this, the game is a Bore with a capital B.

The ratings this year were up, simply because people wanted to see the Lakers' Bryant in his 18th and final All-Star game.

Next year, no doubt the ratings will suffer without such a name on the court.

But the game is a Bore anyway, too many slam dunks, too little of anything else. It makes the actual slam dunk competition into even more of a sideshow than it really is.

As an NBA fan, I admit that the league's All-Star game is probably the worst put on by the four major team sports, and that is saying a lot when you consider the NFL's Pro Bowl. I have heard the NHL All-Star game is pretty good now, and the MLB All-Star game really stands on its own as a showcase for our national pastime.

Then what do you do with the NBA All-Star game?

You fix it, and I have some suggestions how to do this, less make this like MLB's game, whose winner determines which league's team has home field advantage in the World Series.

Here are a few of them:

1) Play a round robin game between three All-Star squads: You have a total of 30 All-Stars, the 30 best players the league has to offer. Have a team captain, who chooses nine more players for his team, for a total of 10 players per team.

Have each team play each other, Team 1 and 2 playing, then the loser of that game plays team 3, the loser of that game plays the victor of the first game, etc., until you have a champion. Each game would be relatively short--maybe 15 minutes each--but this way, not only do you have more All-Stars playing, but you have something that is competitive.

It is sort of like street basketball without the street, and I think the fans would love to see the games and the extra players, some from teams that are bad but featuring players having good seasons but kind of off the radar.

Such a player is Brook Lopez of the Brooklyn Nets, who is having an outstanding season on a lousy.team.

2) Have a representative All-Star team play the year's past NBA champion: Using this format, you have players like Lebron James and Carmelo Anthony playing last year's best team, the Golden State Warriors.

This game would be ultra-competitive, because the All-Stars wouldn't want to look bad against the league's top team, and the Warriors certainly would want to show that they are, in fact, the best team in the league, even versus the league's elite players.

And you would have players in the game who aren't necessarily All-Stars, but who help make the Warriors tick.

3) Simply name team captains and have them choose up sides: Yes, make this like the game we all grew up with and played. Make it the ultimate street basketball game, where two captains are named for each conference, and they simply have a pool of 28 other players to choose from. They make up their teams of 15 players each, and they go from there.

I think this might be the most fun of the three ways I named to make the All-Star game better, because it would bring these players back to their roots, but with the greatest players in the league.

Whatever the scenario chosen, any one of these three formats would make the NBA All-Star Game so much better ... as would shortening all the hoopla surrounding the game, which seems to me to have become interminable for the crowds and the home audience.

Maybe the players are having fun, but those watching aren't, as I can tell you from personal experience.

Everything goes on way too long.

So, those are my suggestions to make the game better. I doubt any of these scenarios would be adopted, because right now, the All-Star Game really isn't broken, as much as it needs to be updated to meet the times.

So don't look for anything I have said here to come to the fore ... but that doesn't mean that something shouldn't be done to make the game an even greater showcase for perhaps the best athletes in the world.

And these suggestions are coming from a fan who has been one for more than 50 years, so I think I know exactly what I am talking about.