The same thought was going through people’s minds after All Star Weekend 2017: Was this one of the worst All Star Weekends in NBA history. Let’s look at each contest and see what made this weekend that bad.

First was the Skills Challenge. Now with the new addition of Bigs vs Smalls, this was definitely more exciting than year’s before. And to be honest, it was not too bad. The contest scaled down to the final two contestants, Gordon Hayward and Kristaps Porzingis. Porzingis took home the trophy after knocking down the three point shot, but still, it was clear this was not as exciting as last year, where Karl Anthony Towns beat Isaiah Thomas in an amazing win for the bigs. But, all in all, the Skills Challenge might have been the most interesting contest that Saturday night.

Next was the three point contest. Last year proved to be one of the best contests ever, with both the Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, heating up, getting very high scores. Thompson almost hit all of this shots, but this year, it was very different. Klay failed to show up, and there was no Steph to save the show. The highest score we were treated to was 25 from the eventual winner, Eric Gordon. But nothing came close to that, as the second highest score was 21. We did get to witness an overtime battle between Kyrie Irving and Gordon, but Irving, who went first, only put up 18, an easy score for Gordon to beat. Again, last year’s three point contest beat out this years’.

And now, the very disappointing dunk contest. Nobody believed that this year could top last years’, where we saw an amazing duel between Zach Lavine and Aaron Gordon, where they had to make up dunks during the contest. Zach Lavine eventually won in a battle where it seemed like Gordon was robbed. So, everyone thought Aaron Gordon would come out with some amazing dunks, blow the world, and reclaim the trophy that should have been his. But that was exactly what did not happen. There was a promising intro, where he brought out a drone, and the ball dropped from it, but Gordon was not able to finish the dunk, doing it on his third try. On his second dunk, he just couldn’t do it under the spotlight, and he was out the competition early. Then there was Deandre Jordan, but he is more a force-dunker, and his dunks were not as impressive. Now, the two finalists, two “nobodies”, in Derrick Jones Jr. and Glenn Robinson III. Both did decent first dunks, which got everyone slightly interested, but Jones “killed the crowd” when he couldn’t complete his second dunk. Robinson then won the Dunk Contest with a good dunk to finish it off, but, still, not a dunk contest people will want to remember.

None of the contests were able to top the previous ones. The Skills Challenge did pretty much get as exciting as it could be. There were no high scores in the three point contest, and the Dunk Contest, which got so much hype, was a disaster. This leaves many wondering, does the NBA need to change up All Star Saturday Night?

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