Tatum, Diallo, Harris show off their talents

NBA, FIBA to collaborate on professional league in Africa

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Boston’s Jayson Tatum got his game-winner from midcourt. Oklahoma City’s Hamidou Diallo went over Shaquille O’Neal to help win his trophy. And Brooklyn’s Joe Harris made all the shots at all the right times to deny Golden State’s Stephen Curry a storybook ending in his hometown.

Say this for All-Star Saturday Night: It had flair.

Tatum won the skills competition, Diallo put on a show for the league’s annual slam dunk title, and in easily the most anticipated part of the night Harris held off the Warriors’ shooting star for the win in the 3-point contest.

Harris made 12 straight shots in the final round and went a staggering 15 for 18 on moneyballs — the shots worth the most — to win the 3-point title. He finished with 26 of a possible 34 points in the final round, beating Curry by two. Sacramento’s Buddy Hield was third with 19 final-round points.

“Obviously, it’s incredible,” Harris said. “Steph is the greatest shooter of all time. But, again, shooting off of the rack for a minute is not indicative of being a better shooter than Steph Curry. I don’t want anybody to get it twisted at all.”

The night started with the skills challenge, and Tatum edged Atlanta rookie Trae Young in the final by making a shot from just past the midcourt stripe. Young was ahead of Tatum in the competition where players have to execute some passes, a layup and then a 3-pointer. So, fearing that Young would make his 3 before Tatum could even get one off, he let it fly from about 50 feet.

“I didn’t want to give Trae a chance,” Tatum said. “I honestly didn’t know I was going to hit the shot, but I had to give myself a chance and throw it up there.”

When the skills challenge and 3-point contest cleared the floor, that left the dunkers. The slam dunk contest field of four — New York’s Dennis Smith Jr., Oklahoma City’s Hamidou Diallo, Charlotte’s Miles Bridges and Atlanta’s John Collins — was pared to Diallo and Smith for the final.

Diallo pulled off a dunk that will be talked about for years in the first round — dunking over Shaquille O’Neal, hanging on the rim by his elbow, then tearing open his jersey to reveal a “Superman” shirt underneath. And his first dunk of the final round had the top of his head at basically rim level, putting him in control after Smith failed to make a dunk in his debut try of the final.

Smith leapfrogged Miami’s Dwyane Wade and took a lob from Stephen Curry to give himself a chance with his last dunk, getting a perfect score from the judges — and a round of boos from the crowd, many of whom weren’t that impressed.

That left Diallo as the night’s final participant. Diallo got rapper Quavo out of the crowd, put the ball in his hands, then grabbed it as he went airborne for the slam that sealed the title.

“Atmosphere was great,” Diallo said. “Just came out and gave the crowd what it was looking for.”

NBA LOOKS TO AFRICA: The Basketball Africa League, a new collaboration between the NBA and the sport’s global governing body FIBA, was announced Saturday in Charlotte. The initial plan is for the 12-team league to begin play in January, and former President Barack Obama is among those who are expected to have direct involvement with the league’s plan to keep growing the game in Africa through the league and other initiatives.

The scope of what Obama’s involvement will be remains unknown, and it’s yet to be determined which existing club teams will be part of the league. Qualification tournaments will be held later this year to determine those clubs, with teams from Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia expected to be among those taking part. No nation will have more than two teams in the league.

“As we’ve been talking about this concept over the last several months, there’s been a tremendous reception from many of our NBA team owners … and in addition, several of the partners of the NBA have expressed a strong desire to work with us in Africa,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said.

Silver said Pepsi and Nike’s Jordan Brand — Charlotte owner Michael Jordan was among the owners in the room where Silver made the announcement — are among the partners who have reached out to the NBA and said they want to be part of the Africa league. Silver also said that Obama, an enormous basketball fan, has told him he wants to “be directly involved with these activities in Africa.”

Silver said talks between the NBA and Obama are ongoing. Obama spoke on a video that was shown Saturday.

“I hope you know through sport, that if you put in effort, you will be rewarded,” Obama said. “I hope you learn through sport what it means to play as a team, and even if you are the best player, your job is not just to show off but your job is to make your teammates better.”