Snow!
Our first significant snow of the year hit Friday afternoon. Which was perfect for A) kids who are driving home from school, B) a wife who has to commute through rush hour traffic, and C) the opening night of All Star Weekend. Perfect in this case meaning the opposite of perfect.
We ended up getting between 4–5” inches of heavy, wet snow at our house. Everyone made it home safely and I was excited to get to use the snowblower for the first time in three years. It broke exactly three years ago right when I finished clearing the 9” we got in that storm. I didn’t get it fixed for the ’21–22 winter, gambling we wouldn’t get a big snow. Which turned out to be a good gamble. I got it fixed in the fall of ’22 but again we never got enough snow to break it out.
But Friday was my night! I pulled the starter, it fired right up, and I got to work. It threw snow like a champ and I was looking forward to clearing the driveway in a fraction of the time it would take with a shovel.
Then the fucking thing broke after about five minutes. Once again the auger stopped turning, the same thing that I had fixed a year ago. Sigh. I’m guessing work done 16 months ago probably isn’t under any kind of warranty.
So I pushed the heavy-ass snow around with a shovel for about an hour until the driveway was clear.
Then the sun came out Saturday morning and even though the windchill was around zero, everything on pavement quickly melted.
Someone hates me.
All Star Weekend
I watched a lot of the ASG activities, way more than I usually do. I don’t know if this has been done in other recent host cities, but it was interesting that Friday night’s activities were split between two locations. The celebrity game was at Lucas Oil Stadium, then the Rising Stars games were in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Saturday’s events were in Lucas, the actual All Star Game in Gainbridge. A little surprised the game wasn’t in Lucas, too, given how many seats in Gainbridge were blocked off for various non-spectating functions.
I tuned in late for the Celebrity Game. Dumb, but good, clean dumbness. The Rising Stars games were fun, mostly because Pacer Bennedict Mathurin led his team to victory and won the MVP. He was going off in their first game, but badly missed two dunks that would have been spectacular. The highlight, though, was him taking things super seriously when Indiana native Jaden Ivey talked a little trash. Mathurin told him, in very uncertain terms, that Ivey couldn’t guard him in the regular season or this game. The playful smile quickly disappeared from Ivey’s face and he looked ready to throw down. TNT picked the right guy – Mathurin – to mic up for that game. Solid exhibition game drama!
Saturday’s events were fun. The Skills Contest is goofy and largely relatable. It helped that the Pacers squad of Mathurin, Tyrese Haliburton, and Myles Turner won. The 3-point contest still holds up, especially now that everyone can routinely hit 30-footers. The dunk contest remains kind of sleepy, the judging sucks, and even the cool dunks aren’t as cool as the original cool dunks were in the Eighties. There were way too many dunks that involved jumping over people.
The best event of the night was the shortest, Sabrina Ionescu’s 3-point competition with Steph Curry. I’m sure like 5% of viewers wrote it off as “Woke Basketball,” but I found it charming and entertaining. Reggie Miller quickly called for (hopefully) future Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark to get an invite next year.
The LED court used at Lucas Oil was nutty. I would think that would be super distracting if you were actually playing on it but I didn’t hear any complaints.
It was great having Uncle Reggie be on the mic for so many events. He was never my favorite player, but having a local cheerleader as one of the main announcers made the Indy homie in me feel good.
Like the dunk contest, the game was the game. The East scored 211 points, which is more about how the game has turned into a 3-point shooting exercise played by shooters with unlimited range and accuracy. It’s not terribly engaging, but you have to admire the skill. The East being up so big meant there was no ratcheting up of the intensity in the fourth quarter as guys suddenly started caring about winning.
There’s been a lot of grousing in the media about how badly the game is broken. I don’t have a good answer for how to fix it – players decided 20 years ago they weren’t going to risk injury and play actual defense – other than scrapping a traditional game. Maybe go to a series of mini-games with smaller teams, more like the Rising Stars game? In the era of load management and constant injuries because of hyper-bulked up players, I don’t think it’s possible to play a normal, 48 minute game. Football has scrapped the traditional all star contest because of the injury risk. The NBA really should do the same.
Draymond Green complaining all week about the game being in Indy got annoying quick. MFer is from Saginaw. A little cold and snow shouldn’t get to him like that. Soft as hell.
I guess LeBron James has been fighting an ankle injury and his minutes Sunday were limited because of that. When he was on the court he still had flashes. But it was very evident that he’s lost a significant amount from his game. Now I’m even more suspicious of how he managed to play so hard and well during the In-season Tournament in December. Not that I would accuse a 39-year-old man still playing at a high level of not being 100% clean.
Steph Curry may be in the process of losing his first step, too. I loved how he was still out there having fun Sunday. He saw other dudes were lighting it up and ran around making crazy passes to get them shots. Compare him to game MVP Dame Lilliard who seems to play with whatever the opposite of joy is. We need more Stephs.
That’s not totally fair. I think most of the players were having a good time, goofing around as much as they can. Karl-Anthony Towns looked like he was having the time of his life. Jason Tatum was running around laughing. Haliburton is always having fun. Nikola Jokic was making fun of himself, attempting half-assed dunks. It’s just a bummer the game MVP was the one guy who did not seem to let his competitive guard down.
Jayhawk Talk
I knew last Monday’s game at Texas Tech would be a loss. KU doesn’t win on the road this year for starters, they had beaten Baylor in a tough game two days earlier, and Kevin McCullar was still out.
I did not expect a 29-point loss where the guys on the court didn’t look super interested in competing.
Saturday I was getting pissed because for the first 18 minutes against Oklahoma, not much seemed to have changed. McCullar was back, but he was beyond rusty and not close to 100%. As with Tech in Lubbock, KU was letting OU shoot 80% from 3 while shooting 10% on their end. The team looked lethargic and lacked fire.
Then they put a little run on before halftime and came out a completely different team in the second half. I’m not sure OU is all that good, especially down a couple players, but a road win is a road win in a year KU has had zero luck when playing true road games.
Now they get a six-day breather to heal and recharge before the final regular season run. Protect the home court and they are a comfortable 2–3 seed. Just be healthy in March.
Rabbit Hole
I will share that I fell into an unexpected and exciting rabbit hole Sunday. I am not going to share what that rabbit hole was just yet. Maybe in a day or two, we’ll see how things go.