Pool Tourney Shows Better Side of All-Star Weekend

By Sean Deveney
Deveney is a columnist for SportingNews.com and will be blogging from The Big Easy all weekend.
This is what NBA All-Star weekend is all about: The 8-Ball Challenge pool tournament.
It happens every Thursday on All-Star weekends, and there are few events in sports better. Ludacris was working the microphone. Carmelo Anthony was there, wearing his sunglasses inside. Reggie Bush was there. Guys like Magic, Dr. J, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul were knocking the ivory around on tables set up throughout the Sugar Mill here in New Orleans.
And Michael Jordan was there.
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This is clearly Jordan palming a young man’s head, not him playing pool.
Yes, Jordan, who so carefully chooses his public appearances, was present and visible, long cigar dangling from his lips. (I am pretty sure you’re not supposed to smoke cigars inside the Sugar Mill—no one else was—but who’s going to tell Michael Jordan to put out his stogie?)
He was paired up with Paul against a couple of donors who had bought a slot in the tournament. Paul missed a couple of crucial shots at the end of the game, and the Jordan-Paul tandem would end up losing. Jordan was not happy. He gave Paul the kind of looks you give a dog after you just stepped in that dog’s mess. Paul tried giving Jordan the big puppy eyes, but it wasn’t working. We’re all aware of the many tales detailing Jordan’s competitive streak, whether it is golfing or card games or, um, basketball. The streak applies to pool.
“He wasn’t very happy, was he?” Paul joked.
The fact that Jordan was there, participating willingly, highlights a connection that the NBA office has yet to make. To me, the pool tournament is exactly the kind of event the NBA needs to be involved in. Players don’t want to come to All-Star weekend and do basketball event after basketball event. This is their break, in the midst of a seven-month hoops grind. They want to play pool. Or be in a poker tournament. Or bowl. Anything but basketball.
The NBA should be encouraging this, should be hosting these kinds of tournaments and getting them on TV. No, it’s not something that highlights the game. It’s better. It highlights the personalities. It gives fans a different view of the players, more intimate, often funny. In the bevy of televised poker competitions, one thing that inevitably comes across is the personalities of the players.
If you could have seen the ease with which Anthony (a very good pool player) would sink his shot, then turn and make a joke to the folks gathered, you’d have developed a new appreciation for Anthony. If you could have seen the way Jordan scolded Paul, and Paul’s sheepish look, you’d have had a good laugh from both.
Think about last year’s All-Star game. What was the highlight? Got to be the Charles Barkley-Dick Bavetta race, right? How much did that have to do with basketball?
There are all kinds of on-court gimmicks the league can showcase, whether it’s the dunk contest, the skills challenge or the 3-point contest. In fact, this is a little-known nugget I picked up last night: The league actually has a clause in the collective bargaining agreement that says players must participate in All-Star weekend events when asked -- all, except the dunk contest.
Those things are fine. (The joke that is the rookie-sophomore game, though, needs to be euthanized immediately.) But if the league really wants to pump some life into the mid-year break, it needs to look at hosting events players actually want to participate in, things they’ll have fun with. That’s the way to show off their personalities, which is the way to bring some interest back to All-Star weekend.↵