The NBA All-Star Game needs your help!

by

0

Is it just me, or is the NBA All-Star Game just stale and boring these days?

Back in the earlier games, NBA All-Star games were competitive and the players seemed motivated to try and win. You had the ’93 game in Salt Lake City which went to overtime; Jordan getting a triple double in Cleveland – the guys genuinely wanted to be there to represent their conference and compete to win.

Nowadays, the players seem to display a great deal of apathy during the game, as if they’re there just to go through the motions. Yes the games are extremely high scoring so there is that, and I suppose you shouldn’t expect to see a great deal of defense during the game, but there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of incentive for these guys to actually compete in this game.

Lets be honest – most of the guys competing in the game are on huge money contracts. For example, Kyle Lowry is due to make $12 million this year, and Klay Thompson is contracted for just a bit over $3 million this season. I could list the entire East and West squad’s incomes, but you get the picture.

By comparison, the prize money awarded for the All-Star game is as follows: Each member of the winning team receives $50,000 and each member of the losing team receives $25,000. I’m not sure about you, but even if I was a member of the losing team, my mortgage payments for the year would be sorted, or I could pay off my car loan or buy a new car or go on a great holiday – whatever I wanted right? But if you take that prize money as a fraction or percentage of their yearly earnings, the players have very little incentive to win or lose. To earn $12,025,000 or $12,050,000 Kyle Lowry? Does it really matter?

You also have to consider the health of the players and the risk of injury. No one wants to see any of the NBA’s biggest names miss any games due to injury, and certainly not an injury stemming from a showcase event such as the NBA All Star game. Coaches, owners and the like would throw a fit if that were to happen (sure, the players would be insured, but a potential championship window could close with the tweak of a knee or shoulder or something (see Paul George and Team USA scrimmage for a great example).

So the players stand to make pocket change for competing in the game; they’re out there because fans or coaches voted them in, so there is a debt owing to those people to show face and your talents; and you’re also mindful of not over-exerting yourself as your team is in playoff contention and is a serious championship threat – how do you make the game more appealing?

A few schools of thought on the matter:

  • Don’t hold the game mid-season – OK, the players not selected get a vacation of sorts during “All-Star break”, but if the game is held in the post/pre season, playoff contention isn’t a thought at this point. The Stars get a chance to condition themselves by playing against the best, so the competitiveness should be on display.
  • Don’t award prize money if it’s not proportionate to the players’ earnings – Either front up a larger pay day for the guys (and have a bigger difference between winning and losing), or change up what the guys are playing for. In Major League Baseball, the conference who wins the All-Star game gets home ground advantage during the playoffs. Now that’s incentive. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the NBA should copy this – but give the players a greater purpose to compete.
  • Don’t let the fans vote – This is echoing the sentiment of many commentators, but the fan vote tends to ignore current efforts and focuses in more on name recognition. Kobe Bryant – he’s one of the all-time great guards of the league; 3rd all-time in scoring and a 5-time NBA champion (among other achievements); no one is going to deny his right to one day be in the Basketball Hall of Fame. That being said, he and his team are not having a great year and he’s also sidelined with injury for the rest of the year. Compare that to Klay Thompson, Damian Lillard, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook and try to explain how his season to date is better than those players, yet on popularity and name recognition alone, Bryant made the starting lineup. This is not new – for years Yao Ming was the starting centre for the West whilst his performance may not have warranted it in front of Shaq, Tim Duncan and Co. However, the overseas voting always made sure he was voted in.

It’s not a perfect system and it’s not too late to change the formula, but given the amount of money people pay to see this event (either live in person, via NBA league pass or by cable/pay TV), we the fans deserve better than the stale product being given to us now. Please also note that I have not touched on the other parts of the All-Star weekend (the Dunk competition also needs a serious overhaul), but as a fan, I just want to see the best rewarded for the efforts by being able to freely compete in this showcase event without feeling like their going through the motions.

Please, for us, move with the times.

The WWE has lost it’s punch

by

0

I enjoy watching TV wrestling. I like how they have story lines and feuds that ultimately get sorted out in the ring (with a scripted ending to suit). I also enjoy other forms of drama (the NCIS series; the Marvel Universe of TV and movies, etc), but ever since I saw wrestling as a child on that fateful night that Hulk Hogan and the Macho Man Randy Savage broke up over Elizabeth – I was hooked.

Throughout the years, the WWE has gone under several face lifts – from the slower, methodical paces of the past to the quicker, speedier contests that you are likely to find today. A lot of the constants remain – bad guys and good guys with the ultimate pay-off being that the good guy wins the feud overall. They also went from a child-friendly environment to a more adult-friendly environment (swearing, glaring sexual references, more violent by way of displaying blood from blading, etc), but have recently gone back to the child-friendly environment. I’m not too fussed, I still have that level of enjoyment from what I see.

However, one of the things I do miss that used to be prevalent all those years ago, is that a match between a Hulk Hogan and Macho Man would take months worth of dialogue and activity to build to, with the ultimate payoff being that match at Wrestlemania. In the interim, they would get fights every now and then against no-namers as an opportunity to showcase their repertoire of moves so the audience would get used to the move-set of each guy. For example, Bret Hart had moves such as the side Russian leg sweep, second-rope elbow, atomic drop, etc, and you knew each of these moves was designed to “soften” the opponent up for the eventual use of the Sharpshooter submission hold for the win. The no-namer would get little-to-no offense in, and the matches would normally end in a few minutes.

Now while these no-namers would just get the backsides kicked all over the ring, they served an even greater purpose. Having those guys as cannon fodder for the big names meant that when it came time to watching Saturday Night’s Main Event or any of the big 4 PPV’s back in the day (Royal Rumble, Wrestlemania, SummerSlam and the Survivor Series), it was actually special to see the big names facing each other. You would still get the moves repertoire for each of those guys, but now they were performing with name recognition guys. The months spent building up the reasons why guys didn’t like other guys was culminating in this moment. This was wrestling. This was WWE.

Nowadays, it is not unusual to see John Cena versus Randy Orton about five or six times a year. It’s not unusual to see a Mike Mizanin versus Jey Uso every single week (be it singles or tag competition). I could continue to pick match ups that you would’ve seen a lot of in the past few years. Don’t get me wrong, the caliber of matches is pretty good; for the most part, they’re certainly not one-sided unless you are establishing true beasts (Lesnar versus Cena at SummerSlam last year for example, or Baron Corbin in the NXT shows). However, if we are seeing John Cena versus Randy Orton in May having a fight and then having a return match-up in June because of rematch clauses or the unsatisfactory ending of a story line and all the while have them involved in tag matches every week on Raw/Smackdown in between PPV’s, does it not get stale, boring and repetitive to see them all the time? Where is that surprise factor of finally seeing them in the ring after months of build-up work?

No-namers, jobbers if you want to use the industry vernacular, were not that talented in the sense that they would eventually go on to bigger and better things after constantly getting beaten down by headliners. That being said, they served a greater purpose. They were that buffer between big events that allowed the big names to get over and to keep it fresh for when the big names had their moment to settle their differences and to make those encounters feel special. Don’t get me wrong, we still get these guys every now and then (Ryback got a tonne “fed” to him; The Ascension had a few as well, and NXT does it nicely), but it’s not like it used it be. Yes, times change, and why not utilise the talent base to full effect, right?

Maybe I’m just getting older, but the entertainment value is fast sinking with me.

Music – A Lifelong Passion

by

0

For as long as I can remember, music has been a massive part of my life.

From my childhood days and listening to artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna on tape in Mum and Dad’s car when we would go driving places, to exploring music on my own and finding out what I enjoyed listening to through radio and TV, to going to live concerts and performances with friends and family – music has been ever-present.

I like to think I have an eclectic taste in music. You are just as likely to find me singing along to Metallica, Slayer and Linkin Park as you would find me listening and enjoying the sounds of Katy Perry, Elton John and The Beatles. I am a firm believer that you should never limit yourself to just one type/genre of music. Why deny yourself the opportunity to enjoy what’s out there? To me, that is like saying you don’t like a particular food, without actually having tried the food in the first place.

There is music for every occasion. Having an awful day? Turn on some heavier tunes (Rage Against the Machine works wonders). In the mood to relax? Go for some lighter beats and songs (Instrumentals are good choices – the lack of words often allows the mind to wander and travel to some amazing places). Feeling unhappy or upset? You can go in either direction by listening to some happier sounds, or by listening to some sad music.

Then there are live performances. Whether it is a ‘bar band’ who are playing to a few people, to stadium-level shows being performed by the biggest musical acts in the world to ten of thousands of fans, music can elicit a wide range of emotions and reactions. These feelings can be conveyed by the passion of the artists playing, the message being sung across in the lyrics of the song, or by the reactions of the people in the vicinity listening to the music. It is these feelings that make attending these performances mind blowing and surreal. For those that have attended these events, I can guarantee you that they will have at least one of those moments where anytime they hear a song they’ve heard live, they will remember everything about that performance (the time of day, the occasion, where they were, what they were doing, etc), and the song will take on extra meaning for that person.

Finally, there are those other ‘public’ moments of singing, such as singing in your car or karaoke at a bar. It takes a special something to be comfortable to sing in front of other people, either from the privacy of your car at traffic lights while other driving look and listen along, or to grab a hold of that microphone at a karaoke bar and to pretend you are that artist for those few minutes on stage. I can certainly say I do not have a voice of an angel, but it certainly does not prevent me from having a go at singing something. I find it empowering if the people in the bar sing along as well – after all, we share the same passion for the music, right?

I think I will leave it there for the time being. There is probably a lot more I could write on the subject, and I may revisit this post in the future and add to it, but I thank you for reading, and please leave a comment or a like if you enjoyed what you saw.

Pete