By BRUCE LOWITT
With the NBA All-Star weekend “sucking as much if not more than the Washington Wizards,” Commissioner Adam Silver said Monday, the league and Qatari-owned beIN Sports USA, the only channel willing to pay anything to televise the events, will make drastic changes to next year’s, highlighted by Curry Roulette and a bareback slam-dunk contest.
“I don’t want to say how dreadful most of the, ahem, ‘competition’ was,” Silver said, “but I spent a lot of time watching Battlestar Earth, Sharknado, Zombeavers, and Crossover, along with highlights of my two daughters’ grade-school performances in The Nutcracker.”
Steph Curry’s bombs were the highlight of the semifinal and final games – six three-pointers including one from halfcourt. “Afterward, Steph and I schmoozed for a few minutes and he came up with Curry Roulette,” Silver said, “which I didn’t understand until he said it had nothing to do with chicken madras or anything spicy.”
“We’ll eventually figure out things for the rest of the all-stars to do, but the Sunday show will be Steph shooting twos and threes from a hundred circles all over the court, each one with a dollar value, and before he steps on the court, fans in the stands can place bets on the circles.
“The two-pointers are all worth two bucks. But say someone bets fifty bucks on a three-dollar circle just beyond the arc. If Steph sinks it, a hundred and fifty bucks. Beyond halfcourt? Who knows? Maybe we’ll make it more interesting, have someone like Anthony Edwards guarding him on half the shots, tugging on his shorts or untying his shoes.”
Silver said slam dunks “over people and cars and other shit” have become so mundane that next year the competitors will have to do it while riding a horse, bareback. On a bucking bronco or a bull: more points. On a Siberian tiger: even more points. “A competitor getting trampled or eaten will cost him points,” Silver said, “but think about the entertainment value.”
When Anthony Edwards said he had a sore groin and LeBron James claimed his ankle hurt, both of them announcing a little while before Sunday’s scheduled tipoff that they wouldn’t play, “it gave me an idea for next year,” Silver said.
“One-minute videos of all the players who bag the game for whatever reason, and the fans get to vote on the shittiest excuse. Whoever receives the most votes gets suspended for a month and loses his shoe contract.”
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