Kobe Bryant was one of the best things about basketball and the NBA for my generation of fans and the NBA did everything correctly to make it sure that the legend would retire in the best way possible. His farewell tour was brilliantly organised, his final game will forever remain iconic, the ceremony to retire his jersey was nothing short of spectacular, they even went that extra mile to make specific hashtags for his final season and all of that is well appreciated.
Having said that, with the unfortunate news of the death of the Los Angeles Lakers star and his daughter Gianna Bryant making headlines, the league decided to make a couple of changes to the format of the upcoming NBA All-Star game to honour the legacy that Bryant has left behind.
And even though their emotions and sentiments are in the right place, the idea they have come up with, absolutely, 100% sucks. Here are the changes the NBA will be bringing to the All-Star game:
1. Team Giannis and Team LeBron will be competing to win in the first three quarters of the game and every quarter will start afresh ie; every 12 minute quarter will start with the score of 0-0.
2. In the fourth-quarter, the game clock will be turned off and a Final Target Score will be set. This is the new fourth-quarter format which is added to honour the ‘Black Mamba’.
3. The Final Target Score will be set by taking the leading team’s total cumulative score through three quarters and adding 24 points – (which represents Kobe’s Jersey No. 24).
4. The two teams will compete to meet the targeted score and whoever reached their first, wins the All-Star Game.
It is complicated, unnecessary, and definitely not how Kobe Bryant would have wanted it. If you really wanted to honour him, all these players had to do was to play the simple game of basketball
with the utmost competitiveness, with the ‘Mamba Mentality’, if I may.
The All-Star tribute is so bad that suddenly the 24 second shot-clock violation feels like a better tribute. Players wearing Bryant’s shoes ahead of the game and honouring him by his number even for a little bit, was far better than some weird fourth-quarter rule the league will be imposing on in at a night which could have been far better than it is going to be.
With a couple of weeks still left between today and the All-Star weekend, I hope that the NBA listens to the fans and revert to the normal format.
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