Long Weekend - NBA Slam Dunk

Out of the blue, I decided to take an extended weekend...I had worked, essentially, every weekend since Christmas and had this past weekend off...I had my 40 hours in by noon on Wednesday, and only having to take 1 vacation day, I decided - with my son's coaxing - to have an extended 4 1/2 day weekend...and it was everything I imagined... I stayed up late every night, drank too much and basically was a worthless slug for 4 days...or sure, I grilled - yes grilled - a couple of times and bought a new snowblower...but I really didn't do jack squat for 4 days...it was great.

I wouldn't have gone out of my way to watch the NBA slam dunk contest because it usually is a snooze-fest, but I did actually watch it and it was pretty good. Dwight Howard and Gerald Green put on a good show, pulling out all the stops... Howard's best dunk, in my opinion, was he first one where he started behind the basket, bounced the ball off the backside of the backboard, caught the ball and dunked it on the other side...it was pretty sweet. Howard's second dunk, that has gotten the most play in the media, was one in which he put on a Superman cape after taking off his jersey to reveal a Superman 'S' on his undershirt and launched from just inside the freethrow line and 'threw down' the ball...after seeing replays, it looked more spectacular than it actually was because he didn't 'dunk' the ball...he was unable to "fly" to the rim...but because it was so quick and a person watching it at normal speed certainly had the impression that he did indeed 'slam' it...

Gerald Green's best dunk was his first one in which he had a cupcake placed on the back of the basket and the lone candle lit...he then had a pretty impressive dunk that included him blowing out the candle of the cupcake before slamming the ball threw the hoop. His final dunk was fairly anti-climatic...he took off his shoes and did a windmill style dunk... the actual slam dunk contest was pretty good to watch...the conclusion was not. First you have to sit through 5 minutes of 'fan voting' that had Cheryl Miller interview each of the celebrity judges as to how they felt won...Dr. J, for some reason, had an entire dissertation that he was willing to recite but Miller finally coaxed him into simply revealing his favorite. Then after that 5 minutes was up you then got to sit through 2 minutes of commercials...the next time you saw the venue it was all but empty...Cheryl Miller fumbles with the untold number of promotions that she likely needs to work in at every opportunity, then simply throws them to the ground so she can read the promotion on the back of the envelope that contained the winner's name. She then gives a phony look of surprise to announce that Dwight Howard won.

Why does the skills-contest/slam dunk events suck? Primarily because it has become nothing more than a 'sponsor-fest' ... Here's the Sony pass cam, Ford dunk cam, Nintendo Slam Dunk Contest all of which are part of the Re/Max all-star skills night...(note: I do not know if any of the sponsors I listed are actual sponsors of the event...just using them for illustration purposes only). I think the participants would think that they are just shills for big business. Take any spontaneity out of the event and make it into a 'structured', promo-filled event and that is the recipe for brewing up a boring event...both at the venue, where television did everything it could to suck any excitement out of the building by going to commercial breaks and having lame and boring interviews...

For a change the actual slam dunk contest was able to overcome all the odds that TNT throws at it to be exciting and interesting and delivered this year. Now it will be interesting to see how TNT can further try to destroy the event after the success gained from this year...