Long Live Frank Fixaris!

For the first time in a long time, I found myself watching the All Star skills thing last night. Mildly entertaining. The best part was the announcers, specifically Reggie Miller, Kenny Smith and Barkley just going at one another.

The dunk contest was interesting, and as usual, the guy with the costume/gimmick won. Josh Smith won a couple years ago with the Dominique tribute, Gerald Green won last year with the Dee Brown jersey/dunk. This year Dwight Howard donned the Superman shirt and cap and "flew" on a dunk. I still don't think throwing it through, even with authority, from 3 feet away constitutes a dunk, but he still got a 50 on it. Meanwhile, Green's first dunk was better on replay than on first glance, because you needed the replay to see that he blew out the candle on the cupcake as he dunked. That was impressive, but it looked ordinary live.

Still agree with Bill Simmons that what the night needs is a game of HORSE...even make the dunk contest a HORSE type thing. Make everyone try the behind the backboard dunk or the cupcake dunk. I think that'd be more entertaining.

The last couple of years the festivities have been great. It is the most entertaining thing about the NBA season, IMO.

Daniel Gibson really lit it up in the rookies/sophmores game. 11 3 pointers. I do not mind the NBA all star game, I would say it is the 2nd best all star game behind baseball and way ahead of football.

I'm not a big fan of 'all star' stuff. I think they should completely forgo the game itself and focus on skills competitions. HORSE would be great. Maybe a 1 on 1 tournament, and if they played a game, make the Rookies v. Sophomores thing.

I do like rewarding players for being at the top of their game, but often time (in every sport) the selection process is flawed, and the activities associated with it need to be revamped.

Dwight Howard is a freak of nature. I used to be big on the All Star when Bird was winning the 3 point comps, but haven't followed it too much recently.

I do have to say that was quite the game last night. It was a great finish and it was great to see Ray Allen play a pivotal role in the outcome.

Was anyone else confused by the uniforms? The East had blue fronts and white backs, while the West had white fronts and gold backs. I had trouble telling them apart on occasion, depending on which way they were looking. There was the one play where Lebron passed to Howard and then took the pass back on an alley-oop, only I didn't immediately realize it was Howard because his uniform seemed to match the West player next to him. I thought it was weird that James would pass to a West player and even more confused when he set up the alley-oop. Turned out, of course that it wasn't a West player.

Took away from the viewing experience, IMO.

I loved watching Ray Allen shine. He was great.

Yes redhawk the uniforms were very confusing.