Why I'm Watching the NBA All-Star Game Instead of the Oscars

The Academy Awards. Yet another awards show in Hollywood, but it is considered the biggest honor in the film industry to win an Oscar, similar to winning an Emmy for television work, a Tony for stage work, and a blue ribbon for an 8th grade science project. Hardly anyone ever remembers for what movie an actor won their award for, just that they won, especially if they win more than once. The Oscars are not a measure of talent, they're a political process used to perpetuate a star's career, or identify hot newcomers. More often than not, Oscars are undeserved in the 6 major categories, Film, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. Other categories like film editing and screenplay writing are generally well-deserved but are unfortunately hardly recognized. Besides all that, why would I want to watch an awards show that voted to give itself 10 options for Best Picture, but only nominated 9? I know the Academy is essentially saying 2011 was a really shitty year for movies, but there wasn't another movie that was better than fucking War Horse?

The NBA All-Star Game. Once a year, the NBA masturbates to itself by showcasing its superstars and rising talent to a more casual audience in hopes to bring in more fans, while making sports writers and diehard fans groan. The Rising Stars challenge was an interesting twist on the Rookies vs Sophomores Game, but the game itself was uninteresting, other than watching Ricky Rubio passing alley oops to Blake Griffin and seeing Charles Barkley gloat all over Shaq.

All-Star Saturday was incredibly flat, where the most compelling event was the 3-point shootout, surprisingly won by Kevin Love. The Shooting Stars contest was awful as usual, and the Skill Challenge involved Tony Parker of all people being better than Deron Williams and Russell Westbrook. The Slam Dunk Contest was about as godawful as you could imagine it. Rather than taking known stars, the NBA instead decided to showcase young guys who hardly anyone has ever heard of. In an effort to return to basics and stepping away from theatrics, the slam dunk contest was horribly boring, save for Jeremy Evans' dunk over Gordon Hayward while also dunking 2 balls off alley oops. The general public felt the same way, voting for Evans to be the champion in a contest that wasn't even close because of the lack of originality and skill. Yeah, it was cute to see Chase Budinger prove white men can jump to Sean Combs (I will never refer to him by his roulette wheel nicknames), but he didn't do much else.

What do I expect from the All-Star Game then? I expect to see Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, and Andrew Bynum play on the same team at the exact same time. Oh, and Kevin Durant as well, I guess. The Western Conference All-Star starters are a clear cut example that the capital of basketball is Los Angeles, not New York, and that the East Coast Bias will not stop talking about Jeremy Lin, but won't mention the Clippers' meteoric rise (albeit thanks to BASKETBALL REASONS). The TNT analysts have already mentioned their displeasure in the All-Star reserves, saying that while they hate that fans choose the starters, it's obvious the fans know more than the coaches, who make terrible reserve selections every year.

I expect to be entertained at one event and bored with disgust at the other. After all, I can just check to see who won the awards on my phone during the game.