I know I'm one of the only people in the country who still gets excited about the NBA All-Star Saturday competitions, but I think they're so entertaining.  Here are some of my favorite moments from Saturday night's events.  All times are MST.  

 

6:42 - Walter McCarty is singing the National Anthem, even throwing in random riffs where he scales up and down with no rhyme or reason like those people who audition for American Idol.  He is better than I expected, which is to say he's not a train wreck.  Needless to say, I am wildly disappointed.

 

6:47 - The first event is the Shooting Stars competition, where a current NBA player, a WNBA player and a retired player shoot from different spots on the floor.  Mercifully, they made this a one-round competition this year.  Tony Parker and Kobe Bryant make the half-court shot on the first try.

 

6:48 - The Los Angeles team comes out and Magic Johnson has abandoned the form-fitting jersey he wore last year and actually has a larger one that fits.  First, McCarty doesn't bomb and now Magic doesn't look like Oliver Miller any more.  It's not looking too good so far, I'm concerned I'm not going to have any fun tonight.

 

6:48 - Kevin Harlan talks about a heart-warming story of how Kobe befriended a young boy who was a Katrina victim.  Pretty transparent, I think Kobe's PR team needs to start working a little harder than that.  

 

6:58 - They show Eva Longoria for the 7^th time after San Antonio wins the shoot-out.  I know that everyone over 40 in the media can't get enough of her, but personally I can't wait for Tony Parker to dump her.  Right after Katie leaves Tom, I'm focusing all my psychic powers on this couple.

 

7:19 - Dwayne Wade wins the skills competition. 

 

7:29 - Charles tells Kevin Harlan that when he offers him some Altoids, he really means it.  Although Charles is joking around, you can tell that he's also serious.  It's really the only way to tell someone that he has bad breath.

 

7:30 - The three-point contest is about to start.  Ray Allen has to be the favorite, with Dirk Nowitzki second.  None of these other guys are true shooters. 

 

7:42 - Tyronne Lue looks genuinely distraught that Chauncey Billups doesn't make the finals.  Like really, really upset. 

 

7:53 - Mark Cuban cheers as Nowitzki wins.  Cuban is also wearing a headset (like a television headset, not a phone headset) for some reason.  If you saw any other owner wearing a headset, it might strike you as odd.  But since it's Cuban, it seems perfectly normal. 

 

8:00 - Andrea Bocelli, the opera singer, performs a song.  In Italian.  I don't know why everyone thinks the NBA is trying to distance itself from its hip-hop image. 

 

8:01 - On one of the pictures they are running in the background during Bocelli's song, Ricky Davis is wearing a balloon hat on his head.

 

8:03 - While HDTV is great, there are definitely drawbacks.  One of those is being able to see hair hanging out of Bocelli's nose in great detail.  I know he's blind so I can't hold him responsible for not trimming it before he appeared on national television, but his personal assistant should be fired. 

 

8:04 - TNT viewers vote Michael Jordan's leaner dunk is voted as the best dunk of all time over Vince Carter's between-the-legs slam.  Unfortunately, Kenny screwed up because he didn't listen to Charles and didn't originally include Carter's 360 windmill jam instead of the between-the-legs dunk.  That is the best dunk of all time.  Sorry, I know that there is no way people are going to vote for Vince over MJ in any sort of competition, but that's the truth.  Actually, that's just the best dunk in the slam dunk competition.  The best of all time is also Carter's - when he jumped over that 7-footer in the Olympics.  This cannot be argued, it is an absolute fact. 

 

8:05 - The dunk contest begins!  Personally, I love the competition, even though people always say everything has already been done, which I completely disagree with.  Think of Josh Smith last year or Jason Richardson a few of years ago.  Quick story: When I was in college, Brent Barry won the slam dunk contest.  One of my friends, who is white, was in a complete tizzy because a white boy was going to win the competition.  After it was over, he turned to me and said: "YES! IN YOUR FACE!"  For the record, I am not African-American, I am Asian.  But I guess I was the closest thing in the room.

 

8:14 - Josh Smith puts some tape on the floor, which is about three feet above the free throw line.  Everyone starts getting a little worked up, expecting something that we've never seen before.  Then Smith runs past the tape and takes off about a foot inside the free throw line.  It actually wasn't a bad dunk, but he gets the lowest score because everyone was expecting him to jump from further away.  Talk about over-promise and under-deliver.  It's like a buddy promising to throw the greatest bachelor party ever, and then holding it in Reno. 

 

8:18 - Magic says that once Las Vegas holds the All-Star game next year and shows that they can handle the "bedding situation", they will likely get an NBA franchise.  I think Magic Johnson is the only person in the world who thinks the reason that Vegas doesn't have an NBA team is because they don't have enough hotels.  

 

8:20 - Andre Iguadola completes a ridiculous dunk from off of the backside of backboard.  He actually hit his head on the backboard the first time he tried it.  I think we might need to take a new vote on the best dunk of all time. 

 

8:25 - We've completed the first round and we still haven't had the obligatory shot of Shaq falling all over people after an incredible dunk.  We better get a picture of this in the finals, people, it's not a dunk contest unless we see it.

 

8:28 - Nate Robinson is interviewed and he sounds like a 14-year-old boy.  So maybe he will still hit that growth spurt.

 

8:30 - Uh, oh, Robinson has missed his fifth dunk in a row and everyone is having Birdman flashbacks.

 

8:31 - He finally did it on his 8^th try and it's a good dunk.  Last year, everyone was laughing at the Birdman.  This year, everyone feels relieved and happy.  There's a lesson here: People will always root for the little guy, and laugh at the goofy, lanky guy who is on acid. 

 

8:34 - Shot of Damon Jones in a bright red jacket - apparently he broke into Craig Sager's closet.  He's also not sitting in Shaq's lap so I have a bad feeling that the Diesel may not be present.  I know he was here earlier, but I'm worried he left.

 

8:36 - Nate jumps over Spud Webb.  Absolutely awesome. 

 

8:36 - We finally get to see a picture of the players falling over each other and running on the court.  Shaq isn't in the picture.  It doesn't feel right, but I guess we all just have to move on. 

 

8:37 - Magic keeps saying that "The dunk contest is back!"  Whatever, he said the same thing last year when Josh Smith won.

 

8:40 - Iguadola completes his dunk.  It's pretty marginal.  Kenny isn't sure what to give him so he looks over at the other judges' scores and then puts up an 8.  It ends up being a tie so there is a dunk-off, and Kenny is absolutely ecstatic.  Honestly, I think Kenny was trying to offset the other 9's he saw next to him and hoping for a tie.  It worked and I couldn't be happier.

 

8:53 - Nate has just missed his 10^th try at the halfcourt dunk and guess who they show?  Shaq.  That's right, he's been here the whole time.  He's standing next to Terrell Owens who is wearing a matching hat -- there must have been a 2 for 1 special.  We've seen Eva Longoria 17 times tonight before we finally get another shot of Shaq?  After we fire Andrea Bocelli's personal grooming assistant, the TNT producer is next. 

 

 8:54 - After Robinson misses his 11^th try, Magic just said that Nate has done a great job for every little person in America.  I didn't realize he was working for us.  Apparently Magic wasn't satisfied with the absurdity of his Vegas hotels comment.

 

8:55 - Robinson completes it after his 16^th try (by my count, not TNT's).  The dunk contest has officially become an endurance contest.

 

8:55 - He gets a 47.  The score is way too high.

 

8:57 - Iguadola dunks and only gets a 46.  A.I. has been the best dunker throughout the night and he loses.  Seriously, they need to limit the number of attempts.  It took Robinson over 30 attempts to get down five dunks.  I thought he was phenomenal and I always root for the little guy, but that was a little ridiculous.

 

8:58 - The crowd is obviously disappointed with the result and the excitement that was in the building a few moments before is gone.  Cheryl Miller attempts to pump up the crowd by repeatedly saying: "C'mon on, y'all saw a show tonight!"  A few hundred people clap half-heartedly.  Just so we're clear, that is the proper response to Cheryl Miller under any circumstance.

 

8:59 - Cheryl asks Nate if he was getting tired.  He responds by saying that although he made it look easy, it was actually pretty tough.  Um, actually, it didn't look that easy.  It actually looked really, really difficult.  And exhausting.

 

Although the ending of the dunk contest seemed a bit anti-climatic, overall it was an entertaining Saturday event.  Looking forward to tomorrow.