I don’t care too much for the NBA. I have friends who love it, but I could care less for the most part, and for all the standard reasons:

• The players don’t play hard enough
• The players are paid too much
• Free agency gives you no ability to root for teams because players move around
• The dunk contest is boring

Don’t deny that the last one is a reason the NBA has gone downhill. The dunk contest lost its luster after Cedric Ceballos dunked blindfolded. There haven’t been any really innovative dunks in probably 5 years. That is, until last weekend’s All-Star Weekend.

The dunk contest was between Orlando’s Dwight Howard and defending champion Gerald Green from the jump. Both of them had brilliant dunks in the first round and really it was a contest between the two of the them. When Howard pulled out the Superman cape, you knew it was over. Still, Gerald Green’s “Birthday Cake” was one of the most creative dunks I’ve ever seen.

Just before the trade deadline, the Cavaliers, Supersonics and Bulls managed to work out a blockbuster trade that sent Big Ben Wallace and Wally “Don’t try to spell it” Szczerbiak to the Cavs to help out LeBron James. A sidenote of the trade is that it sent former Jayhawk (and Cavs contributer) Drew Gooden to Chicago, where he’ll be reunited with former teammate Kirk Hinrich. Two Jayhawks on the same NBA team? I may have just found someone to root for. Now if they would have only managed to get Nick Collison from the Sonics to the Bulls, we would have really been in business.

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