My Take on the Dunk Contest

 

            Mac McClung took home the trophy for winning the dunk contest this year in Salt Lake City after putting on an absolute show Saturday night. But there were some things that I didn't like about this year's format of the dunk contest.

            First of all, the NBA needs to put bigger names and stars into the dunk contest rather than the guys they currently have in it. The guy who won the dunk contest, Mac McClung, hasn't played minutes in an NBA game yet this season and was just picked up by the 76ers the other day.

            What happened to the days where Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, and more superstars participated in the slam dunk contest. Not role players like this year, when you have stars like Ja Morant or Zion Williamson in it, it is much more exciting and entertaining to watch.

            Lots of people who watched the dunk contest did not know who some of the participants were. My favorite dunk contest was in 2016 with Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon. They aren't superstars themselves but they are well-known across the league.

            McClung's performance was viewed as spectacular by the rest of the league but in my opinion, if someone who had NBA experience and was well-known did the same thing, it would have been more appreciated throughout the league. 

            Some players that get offered to participate in the dunk contest often reject it but why? The dunk contest is arguably the best part of the weekend and when there is more players that are actually known by the fans, it just makes it better. 

            Also, the NBA shouldn't be asking players to compete if they haven't had any NBA experience that season. Mac McClung was literally signed a couple days prior to the contest by the 76ers and had not played a single minute all season for any NBA team.

           If I controlled how next year's dunk contest was, I would put stars in the competition and put more than four dunkers. Both of these things will make the dunk contest more desirable to watch like it once was, and for the players it will be more competitive as well. 

Why the NBA Has the Best All-Star Weekend Format

 

            With NBA All-Star Weekend just a couple of days away, I want to remind everyone why the NBA has the best all-star weekend format out of every major American sport. 

            The amount of festivities that the NBA has during the weekend is incredible from the celebrity game to rising stars, the skills competition, the three point contest, the dunk contest, and the actual game. No other sport is putting up this much events during a singular weekend.

            All of the events draw a lot of viewers and are competitive and intriguing to watch unlike other all-star festivities in different sports like the NHL and NFL. I think that their formats are terrible because of how uncompetitive the games are and their viewership as declined as well.

            My personal favorite event of the weekend is the dunk contest and in a close second place is the three-point contest. The dunk contest no matter who is in it is always so much fun to watch. Seeing these players try their hardest to create the most creative dunk possible and whoever has the best dunks wins is pretty awesome to watch.

            The three-point contest is also pretty cool when you see the best shooters in the NBA all come together to hit as many threes as possible to win the event. Seeing guys like Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and others makes it even better.

            One unique thing that no other sport does that the NBA does is they have a rookie game called the rising stars game. I think that the addition of the rising stars game to the weekend was a great call by the NBA so the best rookies and second-year players can show off their skills to the rest of the league. 

            Although throughout the actual all-star game, the players do not play 100 percent, towards the end it gets competitive as the teams reach the point total they must get to get the win. I actually liked the East vs West format for the actual game but the way that the NBA does it now with the draft is also a cool perk of being in the game.

            We see the best of the best team up from both conferences which we wouldn't of seen if it was just East vs West. Giannis and LeBron are the team captains this year and they get to draft their own teams before the game as well.

            That all being said, I don't think any other all-star format comes close to even competing with the NBA. All of the other professional American sports leagues should look at their format and make additions to their all-star weekends like the NBA has. This weekend should be a blast as the first half of the NBA season officially concludes. 

The Chiefs are World Champions!

 

            The Chiefs have won Super Bowl 57 in a very good and entertaining game with the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-35. The game was decided by a controversial penalty call, but that did not tell the complete story for how good this game actually was.

            Patrick Mahomes came into this game not feeling 100 percent with his high-ankle sprain, but was still able to do it all in the Chiefs victory on Sunday. Whatever the Chiefs needed, Mahomes delivered and after he got a little banged up going into halftime when he was tackled by his ankle, he only got better in the second half.

            When they told you the Super Bowl was going to feature the two best offenses in the league, we got the two best offenses in the league. It seemed like there wasn't going to be a single possession that would go scoreless as the two teams combined for 73 total points. 

            The Eagles fell short in this one but Jalen Hurts did everything he could to help the Eagles succeed. He didn't make many mistakes if any and seemed to come up big every time the Eagles needed him to and unfortunately in the end they just fell a little short.

            One thing that caught me by surprise was how much the Eagles defense struggled. Obviously, when you are going up against one of the greatest quarterbacks ever, you are going to struggle, but this defense throughout the year was dominant. They had no weaknesses on the defense in any position yet still gave up 31 points. 

            Maybe the problem for them was the field conditions that they were playing in as both teams complained about that. It seemed like on every play, either a player on the offense or defense would slip and that would be a huge factor in the outcome of the play. Even though the NFL spent a lot of money on improving the field conditions, the field was still somehow still slippery and not good to play on.

            The Mahomes to Kelce connection continues to be one of the best quarterback to receiver connections of all time and I think that the discussion of Travis Kelce being the best tight end of all time is a real thing and needs to be discussed especially if he continues this.

            Now, let's talk about what decided the game, the holding call on James Bradberry. Was it a hold? Yes it was and even Bradberry admitted it. Did it need to be called at that point in time? No, no it did not. The refs were very lenient the entire game and threw barely any flags and then on the play that decides the outcome of the Super Bowl they decided to throw a flag.

            It is pretty crazy to say that the final two games of this NFL season were decided not by the players, but by the referees after this holding call and the late hit on the Bengals in the AFC Championship. The NFL needs to improve this horrid officiating that has taken place in recent history because if they don't, refs will be deciding a lot more future games.

            Unfortunately for the Eagles, if they ran into any other AFC playoff team besides the Chiefs, they would've been champions. They had such a great season and could not of made any adjustments to their team to improve. They dominated everyone in their path until they reached Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

            It is crazy to think that the NFL season is over and we will have to wait over 200 days for the next NFL season to take place. It feels like just a short time ago, we were watching Bills Rams on Thursday Night as the first game of the regular season and now the season is over. Let the countdown begin to the next NFL season as we look back at this spectacular season go down in the history books. 

My Winners and Losers of the NBA Trade Deadline

 

            The best NBA trade deadline that we've ever seen wrapped up on Thursday and I'm still processing all of the drama that went down. So many drastic changes throughout the league makes you wonder who was a winner and who was a loser?

            Lets start off with some winners and there are a couple of them. My first team I want to talk about is the Phoenix Suns. The Suns shocked the NBA by trading for Kevin Durant without giving up any of the rest of their original big 3. To acquire a player like KD and not give up any of your best players is pretty unbelievable and a fleece by the Suns front office.

            The Suns have struggled a lot this year with injuries and not winning games and adding KD solves all of these problems. When KD is healthy, him pairing with Booker is going to be absolutely lethal. Watch out for the Suns in the west because when they are healthy, it's a whole different ball game.

            My next winner is the Dallas Mavericks. The Mavs like the Suns also acquired a superstar in Kyrie Irving to pair with their superstar Luka Doncic. We finally get the opportunity to see how Luka can pair with another superstar by his side.

            Throughout Luka's brief career, we have not seen him have much help from his surrounding teammates and acquiring a star like Kyrie Irving makes an instant impact on where this team can go. Kyrie can definitely get the Mavs over the hump and out of the west. Kyrie is exactly what the Mavs needed. 

            Finally, my biggest winner of the trade deadline has to be the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers didn't acquire any superstars like the Mavs and the Suns did, but they made a lot of beneficial trades that can certainly help their team out this season. Trading away Russell Westbrook and acquiring a new point in D'Angelo Russell was a perfect adjustment to the point guard position for this team.

            Also acquiring role players like Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Mo Bamba will also help this team in the long run. For the past couple of seasons, it has been Anthony Davis and LeBron James doing most of the work, now they get additional help that will lengthen their bench and help their starting lineup out. The Lakers are my biggest winners of the deadline, but can they use these additions to make a run in the playoffs?

            Now onto my biggest loser of the trade deadline and it is the Chicago Bulls. The Bulls are in a very bad situation right now with a lot of big names on their roster in Zach LaVine, Demar DeRozan, and Nikola Vucevic, but they sit on the brink of the 11 seed and the play-in. This roster has needed a shake up ever since last season and the Bulls decided to sit on their hands and not make a single move at the deadline.

            There were many rumors that the Bulls would move LaVine which they could have gotten back a haul for, but instead he remains on the roster past the deadline. This team needed to make a move or two to get into a better position for the rest of the season and going into next offseason, yet they did absolutely nothing. The Bulls along with the Cavs were the only teams to not make a single move at the deadline. 

            The NBA is going to look a lot different heading into the late stretch of the season and into the playoffs with all of the new additions these teams have made. The Mavs, Lakers, and Suns are looking like they will be a better team now, while teams like the Bulls are in bad situations and dug themselves into a deep hole that they can't crawl out of anytime soon. 

Is Lebron the GOAT of Basketball?

 

            In Lebron James's 20th season it only seems like he is getting better when most players regress. He added another accolade to his career on Tuesday night when he surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most points in NBA history, but is he the goat of basketball yet?

            This has been a debated discussion now for awhile whether Lebron is the goat of basketball or not and to me I believe he is not there just yet. While everyone is praising Lebron that he broke the scoring record, people have to realize that the Kareem's record was much more impressive than Lebron's.

            Kareem played in a time where the three-pointer was not as widely used as it is today and as a result only made one career three pointer compared to Lebron's 2,237 made three-pointers and counting. If Kareem shot the three-pointer more like Lebron does then Lebron would be nowhere close to breaking Kareem's record anytime soon.

            The fact that Kareem scored over 38,000 points with one career three-pointer and the rest of them being two-pointers and free throws is pretty unbelievable. Kareem is just one of the players that stands in the way of Lebron being classified as the goat of the NBA as some people believe that Abdul-Jabbar is the greatest to ever do it.

            Others like myself have Michael Jordan ahead of Lebron James. Jordan, one of the most clutch players of all time, 6-0 in the finals, the list goes on, but he has all of the accolades as well. He may not have the most points of all time, but who knows what would've happened if he didn't go play baseball for a couple of years.

            There is a large argument between the goat debate of Lebron vs MJ and I feel like the younger generation is more swayed to go with Lebron because they grew up with him and the older generation feels the same towards MJ. I side with the older generation because I believe that it was much harder to succeed at the rate that Jordan did when he played compared to Lebron's era now.

            Either way, breaking the NBA all-time scoring record is an impressive thing to do, but I don't think this makes Lebron James the greatest basketball player of all time just yet. I still have MJ as my goat and Lebron in 2nd, with Kareem behind at 3rd. The debate will continue for a long time and there is no right answer, but in my opinion, MJ is the goat. 

My Take on the Pro Bowl Format

            The NFL has a new Pro Bowl format and in my honest opinion, it sucks. To see professional football players play a non-competitive game of flag football is not very amusing for any viewer of the Pro Bowl Games to witness.

            To start off, how is Tyler Huntley the starting quarterback for the AFC. It makes no sense to me that the NFL could not select a better quarterback than the Ravens backup quarterback to be in the Pro Bowl. There are at least 8 quarterbacks currently playing in the AFC that are better than Huntley.

            The Pro Bowl is supposed to feature big, household names like Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes, etc. Instead it is featuring Tyler Huntley as one of the starting quarterback. That is just one of the things that the NFL needs to take into consideration in improving the Pro Bowl.

            The next thing they need to improve is the game being played itself. We've seen all season the best of the best play amazing football and the Pro Bowl is meant to put these stars together and see what they can do with each other on the field. It should be in a game of real football, not flag football. 

            My favorite all-star format in all of sports is the NBA all-star weekend. It features three nights of amazing showdown including the celebrity game, rising stars game, three-point contest, dunk contest, and the actual game itself. These games are very appealing to viewers of the NBA because they are actually competitive unlike a flag football game being played by professional athletes.

            Another all-star format that is great is the one that the MLB has. The Home Run Derby followed by the actual game is a very fun and amusing format. A chance to see the MLB's strong and greatest players put their power to the test and hit as many home runs as they can, followed by a game between the best of the best that is actually played seriously. 

            The pro bowl games shouldn't be exactly like how the NBA or MLB does it, but it should be relatively interesting and amusing to watch and not a flag football game being played by a bunch of professional athletes. Roger Goodell, do better and find a different format for the next Pro Bowl Games.

                

    

Kyrie Irving Shocks the NBA World

 

            Friday afternoon, Kyrie requests a trade from the Nets and just two days later, he's paired up with one of the league's best in Dallas as he is now a Dallas Maverick. Luka finally gets the superstar he has been looking for ever since he took the NBA by storm.

            It's crazy to think that four years ago the entire NBA world thought that KD and Kyrie would dominate the NBA on the Nets and win multiple championships. Now four years later, not only did they not win any championships, but they won one playoff series together.

            To me, it is the the worst failed experiment in NBA history and Kyrie Irving fully sabotaged Kevin Durant's career. The whole reason why KD went to the Nets was because he wanted to team up with his buddy Kyrie Irving and four years later, Kyrie betrays him.

            We still don't know the full story behind why Kyrie requested a trade from the Nets, but his history tells us that we should've expected this. First, he requested a trade from the Cavs and left LeBron in the dust. Then, he tells the Celtics that he is planning to re-sign and stay in Boston, then proceeds to betray them and sign with Brooklyn. Now, with all of this in his past, he decides to betray Kevin Durant after publicly stating that he would never leave his man KD. 

            Kyrie is the definition of drama. From the lies about re-signing with Boston, to requesting multiple trades, to not getting vaccinated, and then getting suspended for making anti-semitic marks, this guy is all drama. Don't get me wrong he's a great player, but most of the times he's in the headlines for doing something off the court rather than actually on the court.

            Maybe he will change his career around in Dallas and learn to stick to doing his job playing basketball. This is a great opportunity for Luka Doncic to finally get a teammate who is a fellow superstar that can definitely help this team reach the promise land. Hopefully this experiment with Luka and Kyrie will be a better one than the experiment over in Brooklyn.

            It's absolutely wild that the Nets just over a year ago had three superstars in James Harden, Kevin Durant, and Kyrie Irving and now presently, all three of them requested trades from the team and only one of them remains in Brooklyn currently. It was the worst experiment that we have ever seen in NBA history. Putting two or three superstars next to each other on a team is supposed to help your team win ballgames, not win one playoff series in the four seasons that KD and Kyrie were teammates for.

            I think that if Kyrie puts his head down and does his job, then he and Luka can lead the Mavs very far and definitely make it out of the West and possibly win a championship. I'm very excited to see how Luka and Kyrie gel together on the court and how it effects both of their respective games.