NBA All-Star Game. Slam Dunk. Pictures of Michael Jordan, Mariah Carey. Jason Richardson. Desmond Mason.

NBA All-Star Weekend:

Michael, Mariah & Marv

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NBA All-Star Weekend. It was awesome. Mariah Carey looking hot in that Jordan dress. Incredible dunks. Marv’s new toupee. And the actual GAME was great too!

Let me break it down starting with the Skills Competition.

This is new for this year. The players are timed as they go through this obstacle course. They have to dribble around cones, pass the ball through a cylinder, make lay-ups and jump shots. Kinda cool. But I would’ve loved to see it like they used to do in my neighborhood growing up.

The Bronx B-Ball Skillz Competition

~ Dribble around sleeping crack hedz

~ Shoot through a cloud of weed smoke that dude blows in your face

~ Dribble around broken bottles of malt liquor

~ Lay it up off the dented metal backboard and through the rusty hoop with no net (that’s why no one in my ‘hood would dunk. Didn’t want to have to get a tetanus shot.)

~ Minus points if you crease or scuff your kicks

And I’d like to see them add some new skills competitions next year:

The Big Doofy Block Competition

It would feature Yao Ming, Dikembe Mutombo, Shawn Bradley and a bunch of other foreign-born freaks of nature.

Whoever has the most blocks at then end wins. Simple. But they’re not just blocking basketballs. Also, they’ll be swatting away:

~ Volleyballs
~ Dodge balls
~ Badminton Birdies
~ Golf balls
~ Bananas
~ Ice cream cones
~ Cruise missiles

Then I want to see the Flagrant Foul Competition

This would be awesome.

Kenyon Martin, Kurt Thomas, Rasheed Wallace and Ron Artest battle it out. Not against each other. Just send some goofy guy, like say, Doleac on the Knicks down the court to go for an innocent lay-up. Then WHAP! Kenyon stabs him in the neck and body-slams him to the floor. The judges then put up their score cards. Points are awarded for originality, brutality, and authenticity (of their surprised look when they get whistled for a foul.)

Did you notice that Charles Barkley would not go home? He had a sore throat. The producers of the telecast were like, Charles, go home and rest. He’s like, nah. I gotta run my trash talk. They even sat him in the 3rd row behind the other announcers. They tried to take away his microphone too. But seriously, what scrawny producer-guy is gonna be the one to snatch the headset away from “Sir 350 pounds Charles Barkley” ?

Then they had this pathetic Celebrity-Legends Game. It was sad.

3 on 3 with the butches from the WNBA playing. Look man. No one wants to see them play in the chick league. And even less humans want to see them playing with the men! Good God!

With the b-ball bims, and the old-fogie players – man, I thought TNT messed up and had left the slow-motion replay camera on. But no. This was the normal-speed motion for these players. When Dominique Wilkins dunked it -- even that was in slow-motion. In fact, he didn’t even dunk fluidly. There were 6 frames of him like in the old arcade game Double Dribble.

But my boy Frankie Muniz from Malcolm in the Middle got his game on. Wapped a three in the face of Ashton Kutcher. That was sweet. Embarrassed Ashton in front of his 87 pound girlfriend.

In the 3 point shoot-out, Peja was too nice. He was so money, they had to put his face on the dollar bill. But then it would be a Euro. Why don’t those Euros shave? It seems like most of the European players like to look homeless. C’mon man. Take a lesson from the American players. You were poor. Now you’re rich. Get your swerve on! Get some bling in that ear-lobe. Fresh kicks every game. A disposable razor.

The worst part of the entire weekend was what they did to introduce the Slam Dunk Competition. It pains me to even say it. But involves a fat bastard “rock star” who is so fat he named himself after his favorite breakfast food.

Meatloaf.

The NBA brought in Meatloaf to sing. WHY?!!!!! WTF!!!! WHY, GOD, WHY?!!! Were all the other washed-up 70s rock stars busy? I didn’t even know who this dude was at first. I was like, wow, Tom Arnold?

What does Meatloaf have to do with Slam Dunks? Because he dunks his donuts into his coffee and slams them down his gullet?

There were some hot-ass dunks this year. Between the legs and with the left. The creativity was back. I swear I saw Desmond Mason jump from half-court, do a flip, lean-in, eat a sandwich, spin the ball on his index finger, pass it through his legs, then jam it home with the left – all with flames tailing off his back like a comet. And for that he got 2nd place.

The dunk competition definitely made a lot of people talk. But what about Marv Albert? He’s a great announcer, and I’ve always been a fan of his sexual perversions, but Marv, why mess with the horse-hair?

Marv looked old. And it’s because he switched hair hats. He went with the new brown rug over gray sideburns. I like the Classic Marv with the black lid and pink panties. YESH!

To start the game, they had Gladys Knight perform. Okay. Great. I like Gladys. But I also like living in 2003 and not 1973. Is the NBA too damn cheap to pay a current star? Let me see Nelly, Eminem, Timberlake or Destiny’s Child… but no, for the next act, they wheel out Kool & the Gang.

Man, I had this same lame music at my Bar Mitzvah.

But at least the dancers were hot. But why not make it ALL retro? The dancers could be bims who were hot in the 70s – or bims with hot flashes IN their 70s.

Then came the National Anthems. BOOTLEG. The NBA is getting to be freakin’ bootleg. Gloria Ruben sang the Canadian Anthem. WHO?

Then Martina McBride sang the American anthem. WHO? A country singer? I thought basketball was a hip, urban game!

The NBA brings in these washed-up singers and the game isn’t even on network television. It’s on cable. Bootleg.

What saved them was Mariah Carey’s hot performance. Man, she looked bangin’ in that MJ jersey. But is there a coincidence here? I mean, both Mariah’s and Michael’s best days are behind them.

Jordan missed his first 7 shots. Then Air-Medicare blew a dunk.

The whole MJ shrine at half-time was just eerie. It was like he was dead.

That’s what he should have done. Died.

I like drama and showmanship.

He’s reached the zenith of his popularity. So what better way to maintain the legend than to die on the court?!

Or at least fake his death and secretly live on an island somewhere. You know his death would really help sales of his merchandise.

It’s like the great Jon Bon Jovi said, “Go down in a blaze of glory.”

Michael should have went out like this:

Go up for the dunk and he gets his head caught inside the rim and he hangs himself with the net. His asphyxiated body would be the front page photo everywhere.

What I really couldn’t believe was that during the half-time show/memorial, MJ’s eyes were tearing. Yeah, I guess that 3rd retirement is always the most emotional.

I really liked that cool commercial with the young Jordan versus the old Jordan. That shows that at least he has a sense of humor about it.

He almost made us believe again with that fade-away jumper for the win with just 4 seconds left in overtime. That was great. That was the David Stern script right there. But naturally the East had to screw it up. Oh well, he can always go out with drama on his next retirement.

The only thing uglier than watching Jordan try to elevate, was looking at the hideous sneakers on some of the players. The new style are these shiny plastic sneakers. Nasty.

And Shaq had on big, yellow kicks in his size 22. Looked like he stepped inside a couple of school buses.

Shaq was mad the whole game. You know inside he was hurt that Yao Ming – a rookie – got more votes than he did for the All-Star game. But hey, that’s what happens when you have a country of one billion on your side to stuff the ballot boxes.

So Jordan, thanks for the memories.

We’ll always remember you as the Greatest Shill of All-time.

Those Hall of Fame, Madison Avenue marketing moments. We’ll remember you for the great things you did for your franchises – McDonalds, Gatorade, Nike, Hanes, Coke, Wheaties, Ball Park Franks, WorldCom . . .

Who will be the next MJ?

Kobe “Sprite” Bryant?

Yao “Apple” Ming?

Shaquille “Burger King” O’Neal?

Maybe none of them. Nubs, we may have been lucky enough to have been alive to see the Greatest Spokesperson of All-Time. Don’t take it for granted. One day your children will ask you, “Daddy, who was the greatest basketball player ever?”

Your answer:

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“Well son, Bill Russell won 11 championships. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored 38,387 points. But son, a man by the name of Michael Jordan, had the most commercial endorsements. So by definition, he is the greatest basketball player of all-time.”