As boring and lacking as the Shooting Stars competition is, there’s still a solid amount of entertainment value to it. How often do you get to see an NBA legend, a current NBA player and a WNBA star all suit up on one team for a shootout against other teams comprised of the same trimmings? Only once a year, actually. Unfortunately, Charles Barkley, Bill Russell and Magic Johnson weren’t the legends in question, but that wasn’t the biggest disappointment in the world. Rick Fox returned to the court for Team Los Angeles (however, it was eerily weird to see him wearing Andrew Bynum’s jersey) and Scottie Pippen even played too (although, he might have been using this event in hopes that a team would sign him, still thinking that he has some game left).
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdFa0pKNvF0
Although my “beloved” Team Los Angeles was knocked out in the opening round, my money wasn’t on them to win anyways. They had Pau start off shooting from the three-point spot – an obvious recipe for failure – and when Al Horford decided that his new specialty shot was from half-court (he actually hit both half-court shots for the eventual event champion Team Atlanta), it was all but over for Team Los Angeles.
With one event down, and two more to go before Blake would fly through STAPLES, the anticipation continued to grow, and you could see it throughout the arena (only because the crowd’s population suddenly grew from about 37 fans to a couple thousand following the completion of each event – before a packed house was waiting to see Griffin’s stuff).
