'That's The Worst Basketball Game Ever Played' - Michael Malone, Correctly Realizing There's No Fixing The All-Star Game

Last night was an annual tradition. People bitching for roughly 2 hours about the All-Star Game being a fake basketball game. That it was just dunks, threes, people trying to have fun. Every year we go through this. People are all mad that they aren't playing hard then *typically* the 4th quarter starts and we get a quarter of awesome basketball. 

Except that didn't happen last night. Nobody really gave a shit and I'm not sure why they would. There's no fix to this. It's not like these guys need more money or will be motivated by more money. They tried switching to the Elam Ending so the 4th quarter is just the leading team to get 24 points. That in theory should make it a little less than a full game and more incentive to bust your ass for the fourth like we saw a couple years ago. 

Now part of it might just be the fact it was in Utah. Michael Malone himself said he didn't want to go there. Luka said he was most looking forward to flying to Mexico last night. I don't know, but it's the first All-Star Game that didn't have that 4th quarter lock in and everyone gets treated to that. I'm not above blaming Utah. 

I never got why people care so much about the All-Star Game. It's a fake game. It doesn't help that it's so late in the schedule too. That's ultimately where I think we're starting to see these players not care as much. Most of the teams are 60(ish) games into the season. You can't move the All-Star Game up. The NBA wants it after the NFL season is done with. But players at this point are worried about the playoffs and more importantly staying healthy with the short turnaround in terms of calendar time from ASG to playoffs. I don't blame them for not caring as much. What's the incentive to win the ASG? A small (for their standards) amount of money? 

I know people want to scream the players should care for the fans. But, why? I'd much rather stay healthy for the playoffs. Do I wish the All-Star Game was still awesome? Of course. But I don't care enough that I'm going to have some fake outrage online over it like I saw last night. At least the guys realize it, but there's no real fix to this. The only fix is the players caring more. 

Safe to say the Jayson Tatum scoring record is the most asterisk based record in sports now. Shame.