This past weekend was the 2011 NBA All-Star Weekend held at the Staple Center in Downtown Los Angeles. Every year, the All-Star game is a fast paced, high scoring game showcasing flashy plays with terrible defense. The players, with no real incentive to win and fearing unnecessary injury, rarely display real competition. This kind of lackluster effort makes the game hardly a fun one to watch, but every year a contest is held that makes the weekend worthwhile: The Sprite Slam Dunk Competition.
Many great players over the years have displayed their high flying abilities in this exciting contest and every February it seems to steal the show away from the actual All-Star Game. From Spud Webb (all 5’7 of him) beating Dominique Wilkins to Michael Jordan soaring to the basket from the free throw line to Vince Carter winning the competition with arguably the best overall performance in the history of the competition in 2000, the event always seems to please the crowd as well as the audience at home. There was something funny about this year though…
With the emergence of Blake Griffin this season as a high flying star who has helped sell tickets on the road at other venues and proven himself to be invaluable to his team and the league, there was no question who the fans (and league) wanted to win. Advertisements for the contest had him at front and center and to no surprise the order of participants had him going last after his three less flashy opponents. Griffin stormed out of the gates with a breathtaking 360 degree two-handed dunk that scored 49 points as well as a modest off the backboard windmill dunk that added another 46. With Serge Ibaka’s decision to choose an extremely gimmicky dunk (a kid and a stuffed animal? Seriously?) and the absolute robbing of DeMar DeRozan (both his dunks were amazing), these scores were good enough to push Griffin into the finals against Washington’s Javale McGee. Some may say that the only reason that DeRozan was docked points was because his first dunk took so many attempts, but you may notice that Griffin’s first dunk took a few attempts as well.
During the finals, McGee showed some skill with his impressive under the rim backwards one handed jam and although his second dunk was nothing special I still think he deserved a bit more credit than Griffin’s simple honey dip slam. Little did the viewers know, however, that the competition had already been decided. Upon Griffin’s turn, a Kia Optima was rolled onto the court (the official car of the NBA, big surprise there) and he then proceeded to dunk over the lowest part of the car, the hood. Did I mention that he brought out a choir to sing to him while he made the dunk? As an avid NBA fan, I hung my head in shame at this spectacle. How did the NBA know that Griffin would make it into the finals to make way for this blatant Kia advertisement? Well, it’s simple. They set it up that way. At this point, it was brutally obvious that the event was staged beforehand. This was to be the grand finale of the dunk contest that would benefit not only the league greatly, but please Kia as well.
Is the NBA really more concerned with making more money than presenting an honest competition amongst some of the league’s brightest young stars? Are NBA executives really willing to sell their soul? Probably. They’ve done it before and they will do it again. At this rate, next year will see the winner of the once proud contest dunk the basketball while making a phone call on a cell phone provided by the NBA’s favorite (and most financially generous) cell phone provider.
While it is slightly depressing that our professional athletes "sell out" to corporate sponsors nowadays, I have to ask, are you all that surprised? These are the same kids who leave, and sometimes choose to forgo, a higher education in exchange for million-dollar contracts. For a number of years now, young athletes have been fulfilling their "one-and-done" destiny, where they attend college for one year before jumping ship to be drafted by a professional team. And so, the same players choosing to sign lucrative contracts with sponsors naturally seems like the next progressive step. Just look at the football teams in Europe, specifically the billboard uniforms. At least NBA jerseys have not been fully tainted with company logos everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWe have heard time and time again from athletes and owners across the professional sports spectrum that at the end of the day, it is still a business. The decision to essentially rig the dunk contest to make sure that Griffin was in he finals and that he could dunk over Kia, the official car of the NBA, was at its core, a business decision. Money, for the most part, drives the decisions of all parties in the world of sports. Until fans take a stand, it will be business as usual for leagues like the NBA. There is no reason for owners or athletes to change.
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