The NBA All-Star photoshoot is a bland disservice to New Orleans

I hate to make Kevin Durant an example, but someone has to suffer.

The NBA All-Star photoshoots took place Thursday, and for some reason, the league decided that the most fitting way to portray players this year was to make them look like they’re ready to sell you non-FDA approved drugs.

NBA All-Star Weekend is in New Orleans this year, and unless you’re the type of guy that name searches on Twitter, it’s a fun city. It’s busting with history, music, and pleasure. It has a feel, a look, a life. It’s a city with an attitude that it celebrates brazenly and unapologetically.

So, of course, the best way to capture that aura for All-Star Weekend is to have the players take pictures that make them look like the almost-depressed divorced dad of three. The one who stops at the bar on the way home from work because the emptiness of his house is too much to bear. Just one beer before the tears.

This picture looks like it was taken in Dayton, Ohio. That’s all that needs to be said there.

Durant is wearing a long-sleeve brown shirt, and that’s the surest sign that a man is on the edge. There is never a situation that calls for a brown shirt unless a man wants to signal that he needs help, but doesn’t have the emotional energy left to use words. It’s the type of picture that one does for Old Navy magazines, because work is hard to come by these days and bills have to be paid.

I’d go so far to say that if Durant knew he would be subjected to this type of public embarrassment, he would have never signed for the Warriors. But look at him! It fits him. He looks like the type to pull a brown shirt out of his closet for a night out on the town and think “yeah, I’m going to kill ‘em with this one.” And I don’t think there’s a bigger insult in the world than saying someone wore a long-sleeve brown shirt by choice.

It’s not just him, though. Everyone from the Warriors looked like they were being used to advertise clothes to 30-year-olds who are irrationally sure that they could have played in the NBA.

Klay Thompson looks like the one who became a gym teacher because an ankle injury killed his professional basketball dreams. So, he just makes his students climb the rope and play dodgeball because he can’t be bothered to care anymore.

Draymond Green is the friend who owns nothing but sports clothes. The one who wears sweatpants to dates. The guy who will show up to your wedding in tech fleece.

And Stephen Curry’s picture is so perfect. He has the look of a unanimous MVP who threw an ill-advised behind-the-back pass in the NBA Finals and helped his team blow a 3-1 lead against the Cleveland Cavaliers. This picture is the NBA’s version of the “this is fine” dog.”

The entire photoshoot looked like pictures from a hostage situation. There’s no doubt that DeMarcus Cousins was sending out Morse code during this.

Rather than being a fun addition to a great picture, this Kyle Lowry photobomb just infuses this shot with more anxiety. It looks like he’s trying to rescue DeMar DeRozen before the NBA forces him to record a message asking the Raptors for a ransom and the return of Serge Ibaka to the United States.

“Please just give them the money. They’re making me wear a full-body camo outfit and since I haven’t slept in days and my mind is weary, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really nothing but a floating head. Help me.”

The only person who looked like they had fun is Giannis Antetokounmpo, but that’s because he’s a walking ray of morning sunlight. His smile is a renewable resource that can be harnessed to power future technology.

Beyond him, this photoshoot looked like it was ordered by David Stern to drive out the personality of All-Star Weekend. There’s no way that a non-NBA fan could tell that this was the precursor to such a great weekend. If I didn’t follow the NBA, I would think that these pictures were taken for an upcoming D.A.R.E meeting in Dayton.

Because there’s nothing New Orleans about this at all.