All-Star Saturday night was a major disappointment in the eyes of Shaquille O’Neal. For him, just like the rest of us, the events were anti-climactic and borderline boring.
The worst of it all was the slam dunk contest, which featured contestants failing multiple dunk attempts throughout the night.
In the most recent episode of “The BIG Podcast,” O’Neal flamed the dunk contest participants for failing to make the event a success.
“Do you know why I’m mad? I’m gonna tell you why I’m mad. Dr. J started. He passed to Magic. Then Magic and Bird. Then Mike took it, then Shaq took it. Shaq and Kobe took it. Kobe took it by himself. Shaq and D Wade took it. You guys, gonna miss the money if you don’t perform. You see how good the money is? People pay a lot of money to the All-Star game. If you gonna enter the contest, bring it. You have to make the first dunk. You have to.”
Obi Toppin won the crown in the end, but the dunk contest, and the whole night of events, will not go down well in the history books.
“That was the worst Slam Dunk Contest in the history of basketball,” said Stephen A. Smith. “It was a national atrocity, it was awful. Somebody needs to say it, so i”m going to say it. Now I’m happy that a Knick won something, we actually had a New York Knick that won something, that was Obi Toppin, okay? It was so bad that it was actually one of the rare moments where we should actually hide a trophy. We should actually hide the trophy, that’s how bad it was.”
Needless to say, it wasn’t a good showing for the NBA, and many fans are calling for Adam Silver to step in and mix things up.
As it stands now, the current players just aren’t doing it justice and the big-name stars are no longer interesting in participating.
It remains to be seen how things will change in 2023. For now, people are just trying to forget this year’s competition ever happen.
