Basketball
If expectations are the root of frustration, then anyone who expected the NBA’s All-Star Game, or the entire weekend for that matter, to be anything other a complete and total waste of everyone’s time deserves to be frustrated.
You should’ve known coming in. The event stinks. Nobody wants anything to do with it. The players don’t really want to play. The fans don’t really want to watch. I can assure you that people like myself, who somehow hit the Powerball profession of getting paid to watch basketball, don’t really want to talk or write about it.
I mean seriously, Sunday’s All-Star Game “presentation” ran for almost three hours and had about 30 minutes of actual basketball. The on-court action, with some bursts of low-bar effort notwithstanding, was as paint-drying awful as we’ve all come to expect All-Star basketball to be. And yet, all of the other parts of the night were so painfully bad that we all actually wanted more All-Star basketball.
Kevin Hart? I’ve been wondering for years how this man, who came off Sunday as the living antithesis of funny, became so wildly popular. But now I’m far more curious about the people who were responsible for deciding it was a good idea to have a cringeworthy comic serve as an “on-court emcee.”
The great irony here is that an event that is defined by how little interest these insanely talented superstars have in actually trying at their craft was being emceed by a guy who only knows how to try way too hard at his.
This whole three hours were hard to watch. It makes you wonder, who is the NBA All-Star Game even for? I know the answer is money. Sponsors are sponsors and TV deals are TV deals, but good god is this a bad product.
Thank the television gods for Mac McClung in the Dunk Contest on Saturday night for giving fans something worth tuning in for this weekend. Usually the 3-point contest is a decently fun thing, but even that stunk this year.
Stephen Curry didn’t even participate on All-Star Saturday Night on his home court. Curry, who won ASG MVP, did hit a casual half-courter in the All-Star Game. It was the best on-court highlight of the night. But some dude named Jaren actually hit the most memorable shot on Sunday when he banked in a logo 3 for $100,000.
Jaren and Kevin Hart. That’s what everyone will remember about the 2025 NBA All-Star production. There was a time when All-Star games were cool because the best players in the world cared enough to try — at least in the fourth quarter and/or when they had a particular one-on-one matchup — but those days, quite obviously, are long gone.
There was also a time when the All-Star game was cool because people didn’t have access to any NBA game they wanted to watch any day of the week. Back in the day, you might not see a particular superstar play all season except for the one time he came to your market or showed up on national television. This was an opportunity to showcase a lot of awesome players that were largely hidden from the masses.
Now, it’s just the third time this week you’re going to watch Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell fire up a bunch of 3s. There’s nothing exciting or unique about it. Frankly, and I think I speak for most people who genuinely do love watching NBA basketball, we already see more than enough of these players, whether that’s on TNT or ESPN or League Pass.
It’s enough. I assure you. Nobody needs this weekend, most notably the players themselves. Give them a break. And for the love of all things holy, if nothing else, give us all a break from Kevin Hart.
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