Dave Mason

NBA All-Star weekend in Los Angeles is almost here.

Can you feel the excitement?

Yeah…I can’t either.

It’s simple: the whole weekend blows. With all the bright stars gracing the NBA hardwood, All-Star weekend should be the league’s special showcase.

It should be a way for the NBA to expand the game to a larger audience. Instead, it’s nothing more than a weekend for the league to show off its sponsors.

How can we come together and fix All-Star weekend?

Well, it starts with All-Star Saturday night and the dunk contest.

We went from Vince Carter putting on a jaw-dropping, jump-off-the-couch-because-you’re-never-going-to- see-anything-like-it performance during the 2000 Slam Dunk contest in Oakland to Gerald Green blowing out a cupcake in the 2007 contest.

Yes, we went from Carter’s reverse-360 windmill dunk to a no-name scrub who used props to throw down some pedestrian dunks.

Welcome to the slam dunk contest. The only place you can see bench players miss three dunks in row and still win!

I need more from my All-Star weekend. If the NBA is going to put on a dunk contest for the world to see, I need the world’s best dunkers.

This year’s contestants: Clippers forward Blake Griffin, Raptors guard Demar DeRozan, Thunder forward-center Serge Ibaka and Wizards center Javale McGee.

The dunk contest has turned into American Idol. Idol started off fresh, producing some stars, exciting moments and it was must-see television.

But then they started using gimmicks. They put more emphasis on finding the next William Hung instead of producing a good show. Now the talent level has gone down, ratings have dropped and they have alienated fans.

DeRozan winning the dunk contest is like Ruben Studdard or the grey-haired Taylor Hicks winning idol. Is DeRozan amongst the best dunkers in the NBA? No, so he shouldn’t be in the contest.

I want my Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, so where’s LeBron, Russell Westbrook and Dwyane Wade?

I need my dunk contest back.

If the league won’t do it right by forcing the best dunkers in the game to participate in the contest, then they need to save fans from watching second-tier dunkers in the contest.

I’d even support a legends dunk contest. Lower the hoop to 8 or 9 feet and let some of the great dunkers from the past come in and put on a show.

Bring me Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins and let them show these young guys how it’s done.

Although the league has done a poor job at getting the dunk contest back to its greatness, the fans are also to blame for a lackluster All-Star weekend.

Yes, the fans.

The NBA loves to get the fans involved in any way possible so they thought, “why not let the fans select the starting lineup for the All-Star game?”

That would be a great idea if the fans knew what the hell they were doing.

Now it’s turned into a popularity contest with some deserving guys getting snubbed.

Yao Ming was voted in as the starting center of the Western Conference. Yes, the same Yao Ming who has played five games this season and missed all of last season due to injuries and is a starter over Minnesota’s Kevin Love, who leads the NBA in rebounds per game.

We have now come full circle. The league finds the contestants for the dunk contest and they do a terrible job at it.

The fans select the starting lineups for the All-Star game.

If it’s a popularity contest for the fans, let them select the contestants for the dunk contest. There’s no doubtthe fans would vote in LeBron and Kobe.

Is it a perfect, foolproof system?

Yes.

It will finally put All-Star weekend back on the map and bring some excitement to the NBA.

Dave Mason can be reached at [email protected]