The NBA’s All-Star Saturday Night lineup is a heck of an annual tradition.
You’ve got the skills part, which involves passes thrown to moving targets, relay races and halfcourt heaves. You’ve got the dunks part, which involves whining because it used to be better when Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins did it. And you’ve got the threes part, which involves a lineup of guys not named Steph Curry.
In this week’s “Polling Place” — your home for Sun-Times sports polls on Twitter — we asked which part is your favorite. We also asked which event you’d fare best in. Yes, really.
“Beer drinking,” @FatDudeRunning commented.
Come on, now.
“Ballboy,” @ChiTownSports wrote.
That’s fair.
“I do not have skills,” @VerbanEmil offered, “but there is a random chance that if I hurled a basketball near a hoop several times, one shot would make it in. The three-point contest it is.”
Now that’s more like it.
And a final question: Who’s going to finish first in the Eastern Conference? On to the polls:
Poll No. 1: Which NBA All-Star Saturday Night event is the best?
Time again for our weekly “Polling Place” questions. Let us hear from you! Selected comments will appear in Saturday's paper.
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) February 17, 2022
Q1: Which NBA All-Star Saturday Night event is the best?
Upshot: Have we mentioned Jordan and Wilkins already? Because — gather around, kiddies — there was a time when the dunk contest was No. 1 on everyone’s list. But that was back when the game’s very best throw-it-downsmen, many of them superstars, eagerly participated in the event rather than viewing it as beneath them or a danger. What style! What swagger! What will they think of next!? Not so much anymore.
Poll No. 2: Which event would you fare best in?
Q2: Which event would you fare best in?
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) February 17, 2022
Upshot: At least we can joke about ourselves, right? Well, most of us can. Maybe not your cousin Earl, who still gets teary-eyed thinking about the big game senior year against East High when he scored a career-high 11 points and jumped so high in jubilation at the final buzzer that he nearly touched the bottom of the net. But most of us.
Poll No. 3: The Bulls are atop the Eastern Conference at the All-Star break, but who will lead it in the end?
Q3: The Bulls are atop the Eastern Conference at the All-Star break, but who will lead it in the end?
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) February 17, 2022
Upshot: Wait, did everybody understand the question? The defending-champion Bucks might be a wiser pick. The Heat — not to mention the 76ers — might be safer bets than the Bulls, too. But the respondents have spoken, dang it, and the Bulls get the vote. One supposes we’re as big a bunch of homers around here as folks are pretty much everywhere.
