Though the All-Star Game itself has been a constant since its debut at Boston Garden in 1951, and the Slam Dunk Contest and Three-Point Contest have become institutions, there are plenty of other All-Star Weekend events that have come and gone, leaving their own set of (often hilarious) memories.
1) H-O-R-S-E, 2009-2010
Arguably the most popular basketball related game besides basketball itself, H-O-R-S-E (or P-I-G when the streetlights were coming on and you wanted to get one more quick round in before running home for dinner) has long been a staple of backyards, blacktops, and NBA practice courts everywhere. During the '77-'78 season CBS broadcasted a H-O-R-S-E tournament featuring NBA stars during halftimes of their Game of the Week telecasts. It actually drew some big names like Pete Maravich, George Gervin, Bob McAdoo, and Paul Westphal, and though it lasted only one season it left a lasting impression on many young fans of the time. H-O-R-S-E remained a staple of NBA practices and shoot-arounds from there, with hyper competitive players like Larry Bird and Michael Jordan usually acting as ringleaders, and in 2009 the NBA finally revived the idea as a competition during All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. Unfortunately, this version of H-O-R-S-E was doomed from the start. First of all, it turns out that even when the players are interested stars, watching H-O-R-S-E really isn't all that exciting. That tournament in 1978 was pretty dull overall, especially compared to the awed nostalgic reverence that it's afforded by fans of a certain age (you can watch several of the clips on YouTube and decide for yourself). And at least that had a viable format and some flair. When the NBA revived H-O-R-S-E in 2009, they made several key mistaken decisions that doomed it from the start. Instead of the time-tested one-on-one tournament format, they went with just one game with three players competing at once. This forced the rules to be convoluted and in turn the players to compete conservatively. Unlike the looser stars of the '70s, it was a tough sell for today's self-brand-obsessed All-Stars to attempt the truly entertaining but also possibly embarrassing plays like underhand shots, behind-the-backboard sweeps, and back-to-the-basket Hail Mary attempts. Also, they opted for some reason to stage the game on an outdoor half court in front of a small group of ennui-stricken fans, lending the proceedings a muted atmosphere that even the ace TNT broadcast team of Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson failed to elevate. But possibly the biggest sin of all was selling sponsorship rights to GEICO, who changed the competition from H-O-R-S-E to G-E-I-C-O. Like Star Wars or punk rock, it was obvious that something fun, offbeat, and vital in the '70s could only be revived in the '00s as a bland, corporate slog. After Kevin Durant won his second title during the 2010 All-Star Weekend in Dallas in a competition that actually devolved into a three-point shooting contest against Rajon Rondo because the broadcast was running out of time (and for his efforts he received possibly the dumbest trophy in sports history, one that looked like a diorama built by a 3rd grader), the NBA rightfully pulled the plug on the synergy-fest. If they ever revive it, hopefully they remember what made the eccentric competition at least slightly entertaining in the first place.
2) 2Ball Contest, 1998-2001
After Brent Barry became the first white guy to win it in 1996, and Kobe Bryant half-heartedly emerged from an uninspiring pack of contenders in 1997, the NBA decided to scrap the Slam Dunk Contest starting with the 1998 All-Star Weekend in New York. Knowing they needed some kind of competition to replace it, rather than swing for the fences with something creative and/or groundbreaking, the NBA came up with a dull and labyrinthine variation of Around-the-World called 2Ball. A team of two players would attempt to score from various locations on the court within a 60 second time limit. It wasn't a particularly thrilling competition, but it also wasn't the worst idea, and credit where credit is due that it began the NBA's attempt to work WNBA stars into All-Star weekend. The contest featured one NBA star matched up with a WNBA star from the city's corresponding franchise, and the big names did come out for the first contest, as participants included Bryant, Karl Malone, Mitch Richmond, Steve Nash, and Clyde Drexler, as well as WNBA legends Cynthia Cooper, Rebecca Lobo, and Lisa Leslie. Drexler and Cooper, who was the reigning WNBA MVP at the time, dominated the contest for Houston to win the trophy. Even though the NBA revived the dunk contest two years later in Oakland (the 1999 All-Star Weekend was skipped due to the lockout), 2Ball was tried again, this time won by Utah's Natalie Williams and Jeff Hornacek, who also took home the title in the Three-Point Shootout that year. After one last uneventful staging in 2001, the NBA scrapped the 2Ball competition in 2002 in favor of the Hoop-It-Up Tournament. 17 years after its extinction, the greatest legacy of 2Ball is that it spawned a limited edition PlayStation game that was given away as a promotional item during the 1998 All-Star Weekend and is now considered one of the rarest PlayStation discs ever developed.
3) Hoop-It-Up Tournament, 2002-2003
After the 2Ball Contest failed to generate any excitement during its three incarnations, the NBA scrapped the idea and went back to the drawing board for the 2002 All-Star Weekend in Philadelphia. They came back with... a 3-on-3 tournament? Ok, then. Each team actually featured four competitors, one current NBA player, one NBA legend (though I was prepared to put "legend" in quotation marks, to be fair this competition did draw some great former players), one current WNBA player, and one celebrity (another category that was surprisingly bereft of the need for quotation marks). This meant that either the celebrity or WNBA player was spending most of the tournament sitting on the bench, which the NBA must have noticed because there was a serious push for more playing time for those two in the 2003 edition. Playground rules were in effect, and teams played for eight minutes, before a sudden death overtime, if necessary. In 2002 there were four teams, and while some players, like Magic Johnson, didn't even care enough to take off their warm-up pants to play, others, like Sarunas Marciulionis, put in a cursory enough effort to keep the fans mildly interested. After Sacramento, featuring Marciulionis, Hedo Turkoglu, and the guy who played "Ed" in Ed (he was easily the least recognizable of any of the participating celebrities, going against Jamie Foxx, Brian McKnight, and Justin Timberlake) won it in 2002, the NBA reduced the participating teams to just two in 2003 in Atlanta. While hometown legend Dominique Wilkins managed to wow the crowd by proving he could still dunk powerfully at age 43, the contest was otherwise completely forgettable and cancelled after two seasons. There have been recent calls for the NBA to institute a new 3-on-3 tournament as part of All-Star weekend, but hopefully the next time they'll stack the roster with all current players, or at least recently retired ones.
4) Legends Classic, 1957, 1964, 1984-1993
Though it's been a much more prominent staple for a much longer period in baseball, the concept of an old-timer's game also has plenty of history in the NBA, dating back to the 1957 All-Star Game in Boston. Seeing as the league was just a decade old at the time, the old-timer's concept was a loose one, and the game featured a heavy smattering of former NBL or BAA stars like Connie Simmons, Al Cervi and Ed Sadowski. The concept was revived in 1964, again in Boston, and featured local retired heroes Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman, as well as Arnie Risen, Slater Martin, Max Zaslofsky, and George Mikan. Interestingly enough, this was the same year that current NBA players finally won a pension program from the league after several stars like Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson threatened to boycott the All-Star Game without an agreement secured. 20 years later in Denver, the NBA decided to expand the All-Star Game to a full weekend event, introducing the concept of "All-Star Saturday." Even though the Slam Dunk Contest, a former ABA staple, was the centerpiece exhibition, it was actually the old-timer's game concept that inspired the whole idea for NBA marketing director Rick Welts. Thus the Shick Legends Classic was born, and lasted until 1993. And though none of the games could hardly be considered "classic," they did attract a fair amount of legitimate legends, including mainstays George Gervin, Oscar Robertson, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Rick Barry, Spencer Haywood, Sam Jones, Dave Bing, Earl Monroe, and Bob Cousy, who was 58 years old when he participated for the last time in 1987. Just as you would expect from a basketball game where the players ranged in age from their mid 30s to late 50s, court casualties were rampant, especially in 1992, when David Thompson and Norm Nixon suffered serious knee injuries. Several non-participating legends like Julius Erving derided the event, encouraging the NBA to instead stage a one-on-one tournament (a brilliant idea, but also one with ulterior motives, as Dr. J was, at the time, promoting his own upcoming pay-per-view one-on-one contest with Kareem).
5) Rookies Game, 1994-1998
6) Rookie Challenge, 2000-2011
In 1994 the NBA replaced the Legends Classic with its polar opposite, a Rookies Game. After several years of rookies squaring off on arbitrary teams with ridiculous names like "Phenoms" vs. "Sensations" (they finally eventually got it right and just turned it into East vs. West), the NBA introduced a new Rookie Challenge in 2000, in which sophomores squared off against first-year players. This was implemented to allow the 1999 rookies a chance to participate, after the previous year's All-Star Weekend was cancelled due to the lockout. Though the game lacked some star power (Vince Carter and Baron Davis opted not to participate) it was an entertaining one, with the rookies winning in overtime despite the presence of Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, and Antawn Jamison on the sophomores team. The NBA stuck with the new format until 2012, when it rebranded the event as the Rising Stars Challenge, and implemented a needlessly complicated draft system, with head coaches/general managers Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal picking respective teams from the entire rookie and sophomore pool. Thanks to a recent influx of young foreign-born talent, the Rising Stars Challenge was able to incorporate a U.S. versus The World format starting in 2015. While some form of a rookie game will likely remain a staple of the All-Star Weekend for years to come, and the Legends Classic is mostly remembered with boredom and derision, it would actually some make sense to revive the contest today, to take advantage of the increased availability of recently retired telegenic stars like O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Grant Hill, Kenny Smith, Jalen Rose, Rasheed Wallace, and Tracy McGrady. This would certainly be an improvement on the legends' current participation in silly contests like the Celebrity Game and Shooting Stars competition.
Arguably the most popular basketball related game besides basketball itself, H-O-R-S-E (or P-I-G when the streetlights were coming on and you wanted to get one more quick round in before running home for dinner) has long been a staple of backyards, blacktops, and NBA practice courts everywhere. During the '77-'78 season CBS broadcasted a H-O-R-S-E tournament featuring NBA stars during halftimes of their Game of the Week telecasts. It actually drew some big names like Pete Maravich, George Gervin, Bob McAdoo, and Paul Westphal, and though it lasted only one season it left a lasting impression on many young fans of the time. H-O-R-S-E remained a staple of NBA practices and shoot-arounds from there, with hyper competitive players like Larry Bird and Michael Jordan usually acting as ringleaders, and in 2009 the NBA finally revived the idea as a competition during All-Star Weekend in Phoenix. Unfortunately, this version of H-O-R-S-E was doomed from the start. First of all, it turns out that even when the players are interested stars, watching H-O-R-S-E really isn't all that exciting. That tournament in 1978 was pretty dull overall, especially compared to the awed nostalgic reverence that it's afforded by fans of a certain age (you can watch several of the clips on YouTube and decide for yourself). And at least that had a viable format and some flair. When the NBA revived H-O-R-S-E in 2009, they made several key mistaken decisions that doomed it from the start. Instead of the time-tested one-on-one tournament format, they went with just one game with three players competing at once. This forced the rules to be convoluted and in turn the players to compete conservatively. Unlike the looser stars of the '70s, it was a tough sell for today's self-brand-obsessed All-Stars to attempt the truly entertaining but also possibly embarrassing plays like underhand shots, behind-the-backboard sweeps, and back-to-the-basket Hail Mary attempts. Also, they opted for some reason to stage the game on an outdoor half court in front of a small group of ennui-stricken fans, lending the proceedings a muted atmosphere that even the ace TNT broadcast team of Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson failed to elevate. But possibly the biggest sin of all was selling sponsorship rights to GEICO, who changed the competition from H-O-R-S-E to G-E-I-C-O. Like Star Wars or punk rock, it was obvious that something fun, offbeat, and vital in the '70s could only be revived in the '00s as a bland, corporate slog. After Kevin Durant won his second title during the 2010 All-Star Weekend in Dallas in a competition that actually devolved into a three-point shooting contest against Rajon Rondo because the broadcast was running out of time (and for his efforts he received possibly the dumbest trophy in sports history, one that looked like a diorama built by a 3rd grader), the NBA rightfully pulled the plug on the synergy-fest. If they ever revive it, hopefully they remember what made the eccentric competition at least slightly entertaining in the first place.
2) 2Ball Contest, 1998-2001
After Brent Barry became the first white guy to win it in 1996, and Kobe Bryant half-heartedly emerged from an uninspiring pack of contenders in 1997, the NBA decided to scrap the Slam Dunk Contest starting with the 1998 All-Star Weekend in New York. Knowing they needed some kind of competition to replace it, rather than swing for the fences with something creative and/or groundbreaking, the NBA came up with a dull and labyrinthine variation of Around-the-World called 2Ball. A team of two players would attempt to score from various locations on the court within a 60 second time limit. It wasn't a particularly thrilling competition, but it also wasn't the worst idea, and credit where credit is due that it began the NBA's attempt to work WNBA stars into All-Star weekend. The contest featured one NBA star matched up with a WNBA star from the city's corresponding franchise, and the big names did come out for the first contest, as participants included Bryant, Karl Malone, Mitch Richmond, Steve Nash, and Clyde Drexler, as well as WNBA legends Cynthia Cooper, Rebecca Lobo, and Lisa Leslie. Drexler and Cooper, who was the reigning WNBA MVP at the time, dominated the contest for Houston to win the trophy. Even though the NBA revived the dunk contest two years later in Oakland (the 1999 All-Star Weekend was skipped due to the lockout), 2Ball was tried again, this time won by Utah's Natalie Williams and Jeff Hornacek, who also took home the title in the Three-Point Shootout that year. After one last uneventful staging in 2001, the NBA scrapped the 2Ball competition in 2002 in favor of the Hoop-It-Up Tournament. 17 years after its extinction, the greatest legacy of 2Ball is that it spawned a limited edition PlayStation game that was given away as a promotional item during the 1998 All-Star Weekend and is now considered one of the rarest PlayStation discs ever developed.
3) Hoop-It-Up Tournament, 2002-2003
After the 2Ball Contest failed to generate any excitement during its three incarnations, the NBA scrapped the idea and went back to the drawing board for the 2002 All-Star Weekend in Philadelphia. They came back with... a 3-on-3 tournament? Ok, then. Each team actually featured four competitors, one current NBA player, one NBA legend (though I was prepared to put "legend" in quotation marks, to be fair this competition did draw some great former players), one current WNBA player, and one celebrity (another category that was surprisingly bereft of the need for quotation marks). This meant that either the celebrity or WNBA player was spending most of the tournament sitting on the bench, which the NBA must have noticed because there was a serious push for more playing time for those two in the 2003 edition. Playground rules were in effect, and teams played for eight minutes, before a sudden death overtime, if necessary. In 2002 there were four teams, and while some players, like Magic Johnson, didn't even care enough to take off their warm-up pants to play, others, like Sarunas Marciulionis, put in a cursory enough effort to keep the fans mildly interested. After Sacramento, featuring Marciulionis, Hedo Turkoglu, and the guy who played "Ed" in Ed (he was easily the least recognizable of any of the participating celebrities, going against Jamie Foxx, Brian McKnight, and Justin Timberlake) won it in 2002, the NBA reduced the participating teams to just two in 2003 in Atlanta. While hometown legend Dominique Wilkins managed to wow the crowd by proving he could still dunk powerfully at age 43, the contest was otherwise completely forgettable and cancelled after two seasons. There have been recent calls for the NBA to institute a new 3-on-3 tournament as part of All-Star weekend, but hopefully the next time they'll stack the roster with all current players, or at least recently retired ones.
4) Legends Classic, 1957, 1964, 1984-1993
Though it's been a much more prominent staple for a much longer period in baseball, the concept of an old-timer's game also has plenty of history in the NBA, dating back to the 1957 All-Star Game in Boston. Seeing as the league was just a decade old at the time, the old-timer's concept was a loose one, and the game featured a heavy smattering of former NBL or BAA stars like Connie Simmons, Al Cervi and Ed Sadowski. The concept was revived in 1964, again in Boston, and featured local retired heroes Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman, as well as Arnie Risen, Slater Martin, Max Zaslofsky, and George Mikan. Interestingly enough, this was the same year that current NBA players finally won a pension program from the league after several stars like Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson threatened to boycott the All-Star Game without an agreement secured. 20 years later in Denver, the NBA decided to expand the All-Star Game to a full weekend event, introducing the concept of "All-Star Saturday." Even though the Slam Dunk Contest, a former ABA staple, was the centerpiece exhibition, it was actually the old-timer's game concept that inspired the whole idea for NBA marketing director Rick Welts. Thus the Shick Legends Classic was born, and lasted until 1993. And though none of the games could hardly be considered "classic," they did attract a fair amount of legitimate legends, including mainstays George Gervin, Oscar Robertson, John Havlicek, Dave Cowens, Rick Barry, Spencer Haywood, Sam Jones, Dave Bing, Earl Monroe, and Bob Cousy, who was 58 years old when he participated for the last time in 1987. Just as you would expect from a basketball game where the players ranged in age from their mid 30s to late 50s, court casualties were rampant, especially in 1992, when David Thompson and Norm Nixon suffered serious knee injuries. Several non-participating legends like Julius Erving derided the event, encouraging the NBA to instead stage a one-on-one tournament (a brilliant idea, but also one with ulterior motives, as Dr. J was, at the time, promoting his own upcoming pay-per-view one-on-one contest with Kareem).
5) Rookies Game, 1994-1998
6) Rookie Challenge, 2000-2011
In 1994 the NBA replaced the Legends Classic with its polar opposite, a Rookies Game. After several years of rookies squaring off on arbitrary teams with ridiculous names like "Phenoms" vs. "Sensations" (they finally eventually got it right and just turned it into East vs. West), the NBA introduced a new Rookie Challenge in 2000, in which sophomores squared off against first-year players. This was implemented to allow the 1999 rookies a chance to participate, after the previous year's All-Star Weekend was cancelled due to the lockout. Though the game lacked some star power (Vince Carter and Baron Davis opted not to participate) it was an entertaining one, with the rookies winning in overtime despite the presence of Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, and Antawn Jamison on the sophomores team. The NBA stuck with the new format until 2012, when it rebranded the event as the Rising Stars Challenge, and implemented a needlessly complicated draft system, with head coaches/general managers Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal picking respective teams from the entire rookie and sophomore pool. Thanks to a recent influx of young foreign-born talent, the Rising Stars Challenge was able to incorporate a U.S. versus The World format starting in 2015. While some form of a rookie game will likely remain a staple of the All-Star Weekend for years to come, and the Legends Classic is mostly remembered with boredom and derision, it would actually some make sense to revive the contest today, to take advantage of the increased availability of recently retired telegenic stars like O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Grant Hill, Kenny Smith, Jalen Rose, Rasheed Wallace, and Tracy McGrady. This would certainly be an improvement on the legends' current participation in silly contests like the Celebrity Game and Shooting Stars competition.