Sports ?

We have just seen the National Basketball all-star weekend show. It seems to me that most of this has left the actual sports arena and gone into just show business. I could not tell if the slam dunk contest was to show skill in the game of basketball or an audition for the Harlem Globetrotters or Cirque du Soleil? They seem to have gotten away from the sport and are just trying to see how extreme they can be. I do appreciate the athletic ability of those who are taking part in the contest, but show the same skills that you do when you are playing the game.
The same goes for the other contests that take part in this whole event. Some of the events looked more like what would take place at a church carnival. Then look at the big event. The all-star game was not really a contest of skill it seemed to be a shooting contest to see how many points every player could score. When a game with this caliber of player has this high a score you wonder if anyone did any defense or did they just rest when their team did not have the ball. The final score was the West 148 and East 143? Maybe this is the answer to the Los Angeles Laker problem. No one on either team wanted to play defense.
Yes, I know that local “heroes” did an outstanding performance. The problem is that we need them to be part of the teams that they represent and to play this team game as a team member. Bryant and Griffin are just part of the teams that they call home. When they play their role as a team member the team does better. We all dream of a playoff game between the Lakers and the Clippers because it would be good for the city. The league may prefer two cities playing, but as a home town person I find this intriguing. The fact is that the all-star game has gone so far away from a game and become an event and just an excuse to charge exorbitant prices, for people to see these big name players compete for a weekend.
Now we have a chance that the NBA team from Sacramento could move to Anaheim. We really could become the home of professional basketball in the Country. If that happens, then they will need to move the NBA Hall of Fame to Los Angeles. It will certainly become the center of professional basketball in the USA.
It’s time for sports to go back to being sports and not the show business that we see more than ever with all of the different cable channels showing these events.