NBA All Star Saturday Night features the skills competition, three-point contest, and the dunk contest. There are some big names in the skills and three-point shootout but the dunk contest is comprised of lesser NBA stars.
Skills Competition
The skills competition takes into account some skills but what it comes down to mostly is hustle and shooting to knock down a deep shot. The combination of hustle and shooting should be favored. The rookie team has average shooting but the rookies seem to not fully hustle every year. Team Antetokounmpo has been in the contest before, which should give them a slight edge but they don’t have the best shooting. The Jazz team should be the favorite with home-court advantage and good shooters.
Three-Point Contest
There are eight players in the three-point contest, so it is harder to predict. Buddy Hield has won the contest before and should be considered a favorite. Big-time scorers and All Stars Damian Lillard and Jayson Tatum are also in it but it seems the correlation of scorers to the three-point contest doesn’t translate that well. Kevin Huerter would be the other pick here.
Dunk Contest
Mac Mclung, who has played in one NBA preseason game, Jericho Sims, who is an underperforming rookie from the Knicks, Trey Murphy, a role player on the Pelicans, and KJ Martin, a role player on the Rockets are the contestants. As for the favorite, Mac Mclung seems like he would have the advantage. A six-foot white dunker may receive more hype for his dunks. The dunks he has thrown down in high school, at Georgetown, and in the Summer League are extremely impressive.
Photo Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Damian_Lillard_against_the_Cleveland_Cavaliers.jpg
