The NBA All-Star Weekend has officially ended, and the teams and players can now enjoy a few days of rest before they resume the cutthroat NBA season.
The basketball world has learned a lot from the All-Star break, and Luckily for you, SBOTOP has got an in-depth coverage of the latest news and updates from the historic weekend at Indianapolis and more.
So, read more below and get to know the winners and the losers from the All-Star break.
Winners: McClung, Lillard, and Sabrina Ionescu
The champs ran it back
From the very first dunk, most people already knew that McClung would be one of the finalists in the tournament; the only question was who would be the challenger to his throne. The G League star and defending Dunk Contest champion Mac McClung successfully defended his title against Boston’s All-Star wing Jaylen Brown.
McClung tallied a near-perfect 98.8 and edged out Brown’s 97.8 to win back-to-back NBA Slam Dunk Contest titles.
From beyond the arc, last year’s 3-point contest champion, Damian Lillard, also defended his title against some of the best shooters in the league. Lillard went up against Karl Anthony Towns and Trae Young in the final round, where both KAT and Young tallied 24 points and were primed for a tiebreaker round.
Dame was the last player to take a crack at the racks. The top 75 NBA player of all time humbly showed why he deserves the distinction and came in clutch, draining the contest-winning point on the very last ball of his run. With 26 final points, Dame Time lifted his second-straight 3-point contest trophy.
Monumental night for women’s basketball
For the first time since its humble beginnings, a WNBA player participated in one of the major events of the All-Star Weekend showcase. New York Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu co-headlined an event alongside the best shooter in the world, Steph Curry.
Ionescu and Curry had a 3-point shootout for the ages, where both athletes were given a round to shoot multiple balls from multiple parts of the court, just like in a traditional 3-point contest.
Curry won the competition by tallying 29 points, but Sabrina almost gave Curry a run for his money by scoring 26 of her ow.
It was a monumental moment, not just for Sabrina but for the whole of women’s basketball. “This is where I wanted to be. It’s changed the landscape of how people view what we’re doing,” Ionescu exclaimed after their shootout.
“I think a night like tonight shows a lot of young girls and young boys that, if you can shoot, you can shoot,” Ionescu said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a girl or boy; I think it just matters the heart that you have and wanting to be the best you can be.”
Losers: competitiveness, Jacque Vaughn
Where’s the defence?
The NBA All-Star Game showcased just how the game of basketball has dramatically changed over the years. What once was a game centered around dominant big men and defensive-minded wings has now become an offencive-minded competition where players could knock down 30-foot trifectas with ease and where big men that can’t stretch the floor have become a rare sight to see.
With that, paired with the lack of competitiveness that was shown by the NBA’s elite, the All-Star Game featured little to no defence.
Both teams combined for a total of 397 points, the most points in the game’s 73-year history, shattering the record of 374 set in 2017. The East tallied a total of 211 points, something that was considered close to impossible just a few years ago.
While watching the game, I was simultaneously amazed by the offencive prowess of the players and, at the same time, puzzled by the lack of defence and competition that was being shown.
The Minnesota Timberwolves All-Star guard shared his assessment on the ALG, stating, ” For me, it’s an All-Star Game, so I don’t think I will ever look at it like being super competitive,” Anthony Edwards said. “It’s always fun. I don’t know what they can do to make it more competitive. It’s a break. I don’t think nobody wants to come here and compete.”
Will this be the product we basketball fans are stuck with moving forward? Or can Commissioner Adam Silver and the rest of the NBA make the All-Star Game competitive again?
Vaughn loses the locker room
The Brooklyn Nets decided to part ways with their head coach, Jacque Vaughn, after 129 games. Vaughn was named the head coach of the Nets in 2022, when he was appointed as the interim head coach after the firing of Steve Nash in November of that year.
Vaughn, 49, had been with the Nets organisation since 2016, when he was hired to be part of the coaching staff of Kenny Atkinson. He was set to lead the rebuilding Nets to respectable NBA 2024 results, but with a 21-33 record coming into the All-Star break, the Nets decided to relieve Vaughn of his coaching responsibilities.
Jacque Vaughn finished his head coaching stint with the Nets with a 64-65 record.
Subsequently, the Nets decide to promote assistant coach Kevin Ollie as an interim head coach for the rest of the season for the young Nets squad. Ollie was a finalist for the Pistons’ head coaching job this past summer after Overtime Elite, following his championship run with UConn.
the Nets are currently one of the underdogs to make it out of the East, as the NBA 2024 betting odds have them at 301.00 to win the conference. Their first game with a new coach will be on Friday against Darko Rajaković’s Raptors.
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