The NBA showcased its best and brightest over the weekend of February 20th at the 75th annual NBA All Star Game in Cleveland, OH. With the NBA All Star Break coming to a close it was for sure a great weekend with a lot of excitement in almost all the events fans were able to watch. The young stars showcased their skills in the Rising Star game, three point shooters got a chance to showcase their skills in the 3 point contest, and dunkers got to showcase their skills in the dunk contest.  

Dani Heba ESPN analyst stated, ̈In a thriller on Sunday night, Team LeBron beat Team Durant 163-160 on a turnaround jump shot by the Kid from Akron himself: LeBron James. James ended the night with 24 points, eight assists and six rebounds, but the first ever All-Star Game Kobe Bryant MVP award went to Golden State’s Stephen Curry, who dropped 50 points with an NBA-record 16 three-pointers.  Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid also dominated the game, posting 30 points.̈

Memphis Grizzly, Ja Morant and Atlanta Hawks, Trae Young had 12 rebounds and six assists and 36 points, 10 rebounds and four assists, respectively. Ja Morant had undoubtedly the top play of the night, catching a lob from Atlanta’s Trae Young to throw in a reverse jam, then catching another lob from Young later in the game to throwdown a 360 jam.  They got the crowd into the game and showed why these are the best of the NBA players.  Ja Morant brought a lot of excitement to this game, he had better dunks than those showcased in the dunk contest.

Shadow Ridge sophomore, Aiden Maynor, who is a big fan of the NBA stated,¨The National Basketball Association All-Star Weekend always provides fans with insane showings from the league’s best, and despite some abysmal performances this weekend in Cleveland, the festivities didn’t disappoint.̈

The word among Shadow Ridge High School students was that all the festivities were great except one of them and that was the dunk contest.  There was not a single contestant who made a 10 out of 10 dunk for the first time ever.

Lastly NBA analyst Mike Breen stated, ̈The Slam Dunk Contest was the worst iteration of the event since 2017. The only person who could easily get off a dunk was Obi Toppin, who won the contest. It sparked calls for the league to make changes or scrap the contest entirely.¨

An NBA All Star weekend is always a great experience. It’s always great to see the best players in the world come together and play with and against each other. This year it was team Lebron playing team Durant and team Lebron came out on top with Lebron hitting a one footed jumper to seal the game. Even though Lebron ended the game Curry did most of the damage with 50 points on 16 three pointers which is an All Star game record.