Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Hosted by a Doctor and a Degenerate, Sunday Punch is a Chicago podcast that talks about sports, pop culture, and politics.
Looking for guests!
Watching the recklessness of the All-Star Game, you realize even the biggest stars have to mold their games to the constraints of the NBA. When turnovers, errant shots, and wasted possessions don’t translate to regular-season losses, they really let loose.
The 3s get deeper. The alley-oop passes are thrown higher. When LeBron, throws the ball against the backboard, adjusts in midair, and dunks, he reminds us that there is so much he can do with the ball that we don’t normally see.
This was not a playoff atmosphere. But it’s not supposed to be. I’ve always enjoyed the fact that this is the rare place where Jrue Holiday can airball a left-handed 3 and it won’t matter, where the inner rascal that usually comes out only in empty gyms can goof off and play. I guess you could have a little more competition but usually the team leaders drive that and they both weren’t there
This season, for the first time, they made their picks in person, right before the game. There was, as a result, much anticipation: Who would each player take first? Could we see an MJ-style “and I took that personally” revenge game from the players who were picked last?
Then the league pulled the rug out from under itself by having both captains select reserves first. As both players made their final picks, you couldn’t help but wonder whether an injection of drama could have helped save an event that was dragging on.
Joker was good-natured about participation and trotted around the court Sunday, but he could not be bothered to prove absolutely anything all weekend, which is hysterical for a guy who’s on track to win a third straight MVP and hopefully compete for the title.
Coming into Sunday night’s game, Anthony Davis’s 52 points from 2017 was the previous All-Star record, and just last year Curry went 16-for-27 behind the arc on his way to netting a 50-ball. Michael Jordan’s career high in the game was 40. Kobe Bryant (who had the MVP award named after him) topped out at 37.
The Skills Challenge
Pina: This event is a travesty that needs to be changed or scrapped immediately. It’s not necessarily bad (well, actually, it is), but it’s confusing, tedious, and deeply stale. There’s no rationale for tipping off All-Star Saturday night with it ever again. I don’t know who won. I don’t know who lost. I barely remember who participated. If this event isn’t retired and replaced with literally any other form of competition next year in Indianapolis, it will be an all-out debacle that demands investigation. Zero people enjoy it!
Mac McClung
Matt Dollinger: This one is easy. There was no bigger winner in Salt Lake City this weekend than McClung. Before Saturday night’s festivities even began, it already felt like he had won some sort of contest. But when you consider that 99 percent of people in attendance didn’t know who he was entering the weekend, you’ve got to give it up to McClung for making sure everyone remembers his name.
McClung had scored eight points in his NBA career leading into Saturday. He then threw down four successful jams in the Dunk Contest, tying that mark.
Every dunk by MAC MCCLUNG in his almost flawless victory at the 2023 NBA Dunk Contest
Tap the glass over 2 people: 50
360 windmill: 49.8
Double Pump Reverse: 50
540!!!: 50
And made every dunk on the first try
SHAQ: "He saved the dunk contest”
But he actually didn’t if anything he dug its grave deeper
Let’s conduct a test. If you can name the last five winners of the Slam Dunk Contest, Adam Silver will give you the NBA’s future Las Vegas expansion franchise for free.
Obviously, you can’t do it. No one can. The list reads like the worst SEO play in internet history: Mac McClung, Obi Toppin, Anfernee Simons, Derrick Jones Jr., and Hamidou Diallo.
It was already hard enough getting big names to participate in the Dunk Contest. But now that McClung has won it? As Vince Carter once said, “It’s over.”
What’s the upside for a star participating? Ja Morant repeatedly and soundly dismissed the notion this weekend. Anthony Edwards couldn’t say “NOPE” fast enough. Any other star who was asked about participating almost certainly led with a chuckle before a semi-polite dismissal.
There’s just no incentive for these guys to compete. A million dollars likely isn’t moving the needle much, either. The Dunk Contest doesn’t do anything for your brand; it just offers a stage for you to get embarrassed on. The most memorable dunks happen in actual games, and NBA stars know they don’t need an exhibition to display their jaw-dropping athleticism.
Players are worried about missing dunks or getting embarrassed in front of their peers. They’ve seen the clips of guys missing dunk after dunk. They’ve seen the jokes about players who use silly props. They don’t want to get caught up in the shenanigans and risk making Shaqtin’ a Fool. Most of the big names don’t even show up for the event anymore, let alone participate in it.
If the stars weren’t already afraid of losing the Dunk Contest, the possibility of losing to a 6-foot-2 G League player no one has ever heard of should do the trick. What All-Star wants to lose to Mac McClung in front of all their peers and millions of people at home? Who’s living that down? Who in their right mind would sign up for that?
Full Swing Documentary
WHEW. “Win or Go Home,” Full Swing’s second episode and one that focuses largely on Koepka, is an incredible piece of television. It’s a portrait of a broken man, one who has lost his game because of injury and mental fatigue and is trying, and failing, to find it again. Plenty of images will stick with me from this episode: a bleached-blond Brooks getting testy with reporters after a disappointing performance at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, a tournament he had won twice previously; Brooks melting down at the Masters, admitting he was embarrassed by his game for the first time; Brooks walking his dog out to the end of a long dock at his Jupiter, Florida, home just to stare out at the water.
But two scenes trump the rest. The first comes 12 minutes into the episode and shows Brooks chatting with his then-fiancée (and now wife), Jena Sims, at their home. He’s perched on a fluffy swing (as one does) and is talking with Jena about outfits she plans to wear on a forthcoming excursion—I’m assuming her bachelorette party, but that remains unconfirmed. He seems rather dazed, paying little attention to much around him aside from the toy he’s tossing to his dog, and the Full Swing producers overlay this scene with audio from an interview in which Brooks explains his obsession with his game: the fact that he’ll be at home, trying to live his life, but he can think only about the course, his swing, everything that’s going wrong.
The other scene is a conversation between Brooks and his mother. They sit on his couch, in front of a largely empty trophy display, dissecting the latest PGA Tour happenings. Brooks openly yearns for the quiet confidence and calm mental waters displayed by Scottie Scheffler, the no. 1 player in the world and his counterpart in this episode. “That kid,” Brooks laments, “I guarantee you if you ask him what he’s thinking about, he goes, ‘Nothing.’ The best player in the world doesn’t have any damn thoughts in his head, so why would you, right? … If Scottie ain’t doing it, why the hell am I doing it? I don’t know.”
All in all, “Win or Go Home” made me feel like I understood Koepka’s decision to join LIV a whole lot more. LIV came along at a time when he was at his lowest in his game—a far cry from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 seasons, when he won four majors and looked like he’d dominate the Tour for a long time to come. And rather than continue to put himself through such anguish, he chose to jump ship and secure his monetary future. Was it the right decision? I don’t know, and according to recent reports, he may not know either. But it certainly made more sense after this episode.