Victor Wembanyama's successful All-Star debut and much ado made of TNT
02/18/2025 08:37 AM
It was a good weekend to be a Spurs fan and an All-Star Weekend farewell to Ernie, Kenny, Chuck and Shaq
In the modified All-Star Game format that drew a great amount of fair criticism, Kenny Smith's Young Stars took on Charles Barkley's Global Stars for the right to advance to the final against the winner of the matchup between the Rising Stars team managed by Candace Parker and Shaquille O'Neal's OG Squad.
Victor Wembanyama and Team Chuck used an 11-5 run to close out Team Kenny 41-32 in game one, while Team Shaq, as expected, put away the upstart Rising Stars squad 42-35 that saw Stephon Castle get the pre-game interview opposite Stephen Curry. Team Shaq claimed the final 41-25 in runaway fashion, and the hometown host, Curry, won the MVP for raining down a handful of threes, including a smooth halfcourt shot and a running three-pointer.
Because this format (and the whole evening in general) was essentially a farewell to the venerated 'Inside the NBA' studio team, one of the main things that viewers seemed to take away was the sheer amount of time that DIDN'T involve actual basketball played.
The tone of the evening vacillated between touching (the NBA awarding the Inside the NBA team 'Gone Fishing' themed gifts) to cringey (Mr. Beast's $100K challenge) to random (a concert set from different Bay Area artists, including personal favorite En Vogue!) to 'what are we doing here?' (interrupting an 11-1 run by Team Shaq for that touching moment — that took over 15 minutes). Ultimately, San Antonio's Wembanyama and Castle showed out to help salvage what could have been a funereal Sunday night.
Observations
- Wembanyama, despite looking visibly winded and maybe medically ill the past several weeks, took the games seriously.
- This format of advancing the winning Rising Stars team from Friday to the Sunday showcase needs to be shuttered or modified significantly.
- It wasn't lost on me that, while Kevin Hart (not-as-funny) was rehashing a lot of his old jokes with the Inside the NBA team during the telecast, SNL was broadcasting its 50th anniversary celebration (much more funny).
- LeBron James ended up not playing and unintentionally (or selfishly) taking another worthy All-Star slot that could have gone to someone like Domantas Sabonis.
- Victor Ease: In the first semi-finals, and after Cade Cunningham upfaked the center in the air and drove righ to the rim, Wembanyama sufficiently recovered to emphatically swat away his dunk attempt. At the start of the final, Wembanyama had a good looking pull-up three in transition and a gliding transition dunk to boot.
- Castle Hills: He had a nice floater and a coast-to-coast transition lay-up in Team Candace's opening round loss. He also had a deflection while Team Shaq was trying to close his team out.
- Defensive Player of All-Star Night: Kyrie Irving??????
- Nikola Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Wembanyama in the opening semifinal was an otherworldly frontline. Towns connected on a a three from 40+ feet out, Wembanyama took a feed on the left block and dunked home a drive and turned away Evan Mobley at the other end, while Jokic actually tried on defense over a series of possessions.
- After their win, Chuck's Global Stars ended up sitting over 40 minutes before taking on Team Shaq in the finals.
San Antonio gets the TNT treatment on Thursday night at 8:30 PM with a match-up against Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns.
