NBA All-star 2021: The game no one seemed to want
ATLANTA » It’s the NBA All-star Game almost no one seemed to want.
Certainly not the players, who scoffed at the notion of playing an exhibition game in the midst of a pandemic.
The city of Atlanta, picked as a replacement for original host Indianapolis, didn’t seem so thrilled with the idea, either.
The mayor urged fans to stay away from an event renowned for wild parties and packed streets. Police scheduled 12-hour shifts and canceled off days in an attempt to crack down on any events that could lead to a surge of COVID-19 cases.
But the league pressed forward, eager to improve its bottom line and its brand by televising the popular midseason showcase around the world.
The NBA’S best will take the court Sunday in a one-nightonly, hastily arranged event at mostly empty State Farm Arena, where only a limited number of invited guests will be allowed to watch in person.
“All-star is part of our league. It’s no different than all the other games we play,” Commissioner Adam Silver said. “It begins and ends with the fans. This is an event the fans love to see. They love to see the players come together.
“But,” he quickly added, “nothing comes without controversy in a pandemic.”
The league’s biggest stars, led by Lebron James, would have preferred getting some muchneeded time off during the sixday break.
James even went so far as to call it “a slap in the face” to players who had little time to recover from last year’s interrupted season, which was completed in a central Florida bubble, and are
still dealing with burdensome protocols intended to stifle the coronavirus as much as possible (but still weren’t enough to prevent the postponement of 31 games in the first half).
Now that it’s game on, James is trying to make the best of the situation, using the All-star platform to carry on with his efforts to expand voting rights — a fitting gesture with the game being held in a state that was one of the focal points of the 2020 election.
“Look what we made happen, what our voices made possible,” the Los Angeles Lakers star says in a 51-second ad that was set to air for the first time during the game. “And now, look what they’re trying to do to silence us, using every trick in the book and attacking democracy itself. Because they saw what we’re capable of, and they fear it.”
Some things to watch for in Sunday’s All-star Game:
Team Lebron vs. team Durant
This will be the fourth straight year to feature a format where the two top vote-getters served as captains and drafted their teams from the All-star selections.
James has handled the duties all four times, going 3-0 in his previous stints — including last year’s 157-155 thriller in Chicago. Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant got the nod for the first time, though he won’t be able to play in the game because of an ailing hamstring.
James used the top draft pick on two-time reigning MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, who captained the squad that went against Team Lebron the last two years. They are joined in the starting lineup by Stephen Curry of Golden State, Luka Doncic of Dallas and Nikola Jokic of Denver.
Durant selected Nets teammate Kyrie Irving with his first choice, rounding out the starting lineup with Joel Embiid of the 76ers, 2020 All-star MVP Kawhi Leonard of the Los Angeles Clippers, Bradley Beal of Washington and Jayson Tatum of the Celtics.
“I just try to pick players that can complement one another,” James said. “It’s the All-star Game, so there’s going to be some shenanigans out there. But for the majority of the game, we’re going to try to play the right way and come out with a win.”
Mad skillz
With only one night to get in all the events, two competitions will be held shortly before the All-star Game tipoff.
The Skills Challenge, a test of ball-handling, passing and shooting ability, will feature Doncic, Portland’s Robert Covington, Chris Paul of the Suns, Julius Randle of the Knicks, Indiana’s Domantas Sabonis, and Nikola Vucevic of the Magic.
Taking part in the 3-point shooting contest are Curry, Tatum, Boston’s Jaylen Brown, Zach Lavine of the Bulls, and a pair of Utah guards, Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley.
Conley was a replacement for Phoenix star Devin Booker, who can’t participate because of an injury.
High flyers
The Slam Dunk showdown will take place at halftime between Portland’s Anfernee Simons and a pair of rookies: New York’s Obi Toppin and Indiana’s Cassius Stanley.
I’ve been watching a lot of dunks the past couple of days,” Toppin said. “I’m going to try to do some stuff that hasn’t been done yet in the dunk contest.”
He got a few tips from his father, who was a well-known streetball player in Brooklyn.
“I talked to him about some of the dunks,” Toppin said. “He’s basically telling me which ones are a little crazy.”
LAS VEGAS » Kyle Larson was out of NASCAR long enough to wonder if he’d still feel comfortable in a Cup car. He raced in nearly 100 events last year, just not in 3,400-pound stock cars.
Would it feel the same as he remembered? Had his familiarity with the interior faded? His instincts slipped?
Larson, who won 42 of 83 open-wheel races during his NASCAR suspension for using a racial slur, has fallen right back into the old routine.
“I thought there would be cobwebs and rust. But maybe because I raced so much last year in sprint cars and open wheel cars ... I felt as fresh as ever,” Larson said. “When I got in the car and put my headand-neck restraint on and buckled up, everything just felt normal. It didn’t feel like I had been out of the car a long time.
“Even shifting gears and coming down pit road and stopping on my pit sign and stuff like that, like it’s all come natural so far.”
Larson, fired by Chip Ganassi Racing after using a racial slur during an iracing event in April, was hired by Hendrick Motorsports when his ban was lifted at the end of last season. His official return was last month at Daytona International Speedway, where he opened his second chance in NASCAR with a 10th-place finish in the Daytona 500.
He was running in the top three with seven laps remaining a week later on the Daytona road course when Larson, in a moment of admitted over-aggressiveness, spun his Chevrolet and fell to a 30thplace finish. Last week at Homestead-miami Speedway, Larson led five laps and finished fourth, marking back-to-back weeks he believed he had a shot to win.
Next up is Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It’s the fourth race of the season and falls one day short of his fourth and final Cup race a year ago. The season was paused for the pandemic, Larson was suspended during the shutdown and missed the final 32 races of the year.
Despite his layoff and the move to a new organization, he’s already fitting in well at
Hendrick Motorsports. The team got its first win of the season last week from William Byron, a playoff driver who typically hovers around the cutoff mark but is now automatically qualified.
Alex Bowman had one of the fastest cars at the Daytona 500, and reigning series champion Chase Elliott could have won both the Daytona 500 and the road course race a week later. Chad Knaus, vice president of competition, believes Hendrick drivers could have swept the first three races of the season and Larson could get a victory soon.
Coming off the suspension, Larson has made a strong off-track impression on Hendrick, too. He has been a welcome addition to the driver debriefs, which no longer include seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson downloading information for the first time in nearly two decades.
“I’ve been really impressed with Kyle. Having him here, he’s been very open, very forthcoming with information from what he’s feeling,” Knaus said. “He’s an open book. He’s been great and we could not be more pleased with his performance.”
He’s also noticed a patience in Larson, particularly at Homestead last week when Larson could have been too aggressive with his preferred style of riding up against the wall.
“Everybody also had the thought of Kyle, fast but he crashes. Or fast but he hits the wall, fast but does a lot of those things,” Knaus said. “Homestead would have been a great opportunity to compromise the car and he didn’t do it. He ran top-five all day long, didn’t think he had more than that and didn’t want to push it.
“That’s a high level of maturity that I did not know he had.”
New winners
Las Vegas should be the track that returns some normalcy to victory lane after three surprise winners through the first three races.
Michael Mcdowell and Christopher Bell scored the first wins of their careers to open the season and Byron earned his second-ever Cup victory. But the 1.5-mile traditional intermediate Las Vegas track represents the type of track the Cup cars frequent most and the top teams really pull away from the pack.
Six of the drivers in Sunday’s field are previous Las Vegas winners, including two-time defending race winner Joey Logano.
Denny Hamlin, the current Cup points
leader, has never won in 18 starts at Las Vegas.
Odds and ends
Harvick is the 5-1 favorite to win Las Vegas, where he won in 2016 and 2018. Martin Truex Jr. is 13-2, while Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin are both 8-1. Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano are 9-1 and Logano is the defending race winner . ... Chase Briscoe is leading the rookie of the year standings by nine points over Anthony Alfredo. Briscoe last season was the first Xfinity Series driver in history to sweep the Las Vegas races . ... Raiders quarterback David Carr is the grand marshal . ... Spectators returned to the speedway for the first time since last February’s race. The speedway was permitted to host approximately 12,500 fans and tickets sold out for all three days of racing. Infield camping was not permitted. “This is the first time I can ever remember being disappointed to announce a sellout,” said Chris Powell, track president.