NBA All-Star Saturday is a spectacle, the annual convention of all things NBA. Gone are the days of Magic vs. Jordan and Bird, Tom Chambers going for 34 in the ’87 All Star game (look closely, they actually double teamed Kareem. Defense was allowed).

The All-Star game is not going anywhere fast. The longer it goes on, the more gimmicks are inserted. Sunday’s contest will be a series of three games, the last of which tips off at 10 p.m. ET.

Yes there is no single All Star game anymore anyhow.

The rosters are divided into four teams with the final two teams facing off, yes again at 10:00 pm ET.

The dunk contest furthers the spectacle with the yearly call up of Max McClung. McClung who has played all of five minutes this season for the Magic won his third-straight Slam Dunk contest in part by jumping over a Kia Saturday night.

McClung, you can’t not like him, he brings the energy and the dunks, but he’s not even an NBA player. Of course, it’s not the first time a car was brought onto the court for the dunk contest but still, the shark has been jumped.

How to fix the NBA All-Star game? Get back to the basics.

New York, NY – December 25, 2013 – Madison Square Garden: NBA analyst Hubie Brown during a regular season game
(Photo by Ben Solomon / ESPN Images)

Sunday before the Super Bowl, Hubie Brown will broadcast his final NBA game on ABC at 2 pm ET on ABC, he will be paired with Mike Breen for the 76ers at the Bucks in Milwaukee where Brown got his start in the NBA.

Brown at 91 years of age, will retire from a broadcasting career that began in the mid-80’s.

Brown began his basketball coaching career in 1955 at St. Mary Academy in Little Falls, NY.  His high school coaching career continued until 1967 when he joined jumped to the college ranks and began as an assistant at William and Mary. From there he was a Duke assistant from 1968-1972. In 1972 he became an NBA assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks. His first pro head coaching job came with the Kentucky Colonels from ’74-’76, winning the 1975 ABA Championship.

From ’76-’81 he was the head coach of the Atlanta Hawks.

From ’82-’86 he was the head coach of the New York Knicks.

His NBA broadcasting career began on the USA Network in 1985. After leaving the Knicks in ’86 he was hired by CBS. He later broadcast games for Turner.

He returned to coaching in 2002, with the Memphis Grizzlies until 2004.

He’s been with ESPN since 2004.

Brown joined Chris “Mad Dog” Russo on SirusXM’s MadDog Sports Radio this week and spoke on the topic of broadcasting on TV among other topics:

“I think that we always try to approach it that you a never underestimate the IQ of your audience, whether you’re teaching in a class or whether I was doing a clinic, you know, somewhere in the, in the world because we did so many clinics internationally as well, North and South America and then here in the United States. So I always thought that I was a basketball teacher first. You never underestimate the audience”

The great Hubie Brown becomes very emotional when Mad Dog Russo asks him about the personal tragedies he’s suffered recently. Hubie lost his wife, daughter and son, all in the past two years. 💔 pic.twitter.com/gSieHq8QDV

— Funhouse (@BackAftaThis) February 5, 2025

Late Wednesday ESPN reported that the Miami Heat have traded Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors, for Kyle Anderson, Andrew Wiggins and a protected 2026 first-round pick.

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Butler became a disgruntled superstar last year when the Heat declined to sign him to a max longterm extension. Butler then was suspended multiple times this season by the Heat for “conduct detrimental to the team”

Butler as part of the deal, agreed to a new two-year contract extension with the Warriors.

One tidbit from the ESPN report is that Kerr repeatedly told the media in recent weeks and days that he did not want the Warriors “to do anything crazy”.

“Don’t do anything crazy,” Kerr said. “We are not in that position. I think it is important for every organization to know where they are and understand the circumstances and then you see the possibilities. Draymond, Steph and I have talked about this privately; we have talked about this with [Warriors general manager] Mike [Dunleavy Jr.]. There is a responsibility to the organization to do the right thing and to not beg for some crazy trade that is going to put the next 10 years in jeopardy.”

While giving up Anderson and Wiggins two aging veterans and this year’s first round pick is not putting the team in jeopardy for the next ten years, adding Butler is in fact a crazy trade.  Maybe we’re reading too much into it, but that’s the entire point of NBA trade season.

The Warriors are currently the 11th placed team in a packed Western Conference, but are just five games back from the fourth-seed in the West. Steph Curry is 36. The Warriors front office wants to give it one more go it appears before a rebuild happens. That one more go involves Jimmy Butler, after an attempted trade for Kevin Durant with Phoenix fizzled out after Durant allegedly asserted he did not want to return to the Warriors.

It became apparent in the final weeks of Butler’s tenure in Miami that the relationship between player and coach had deteriorated. It looked pretty bad. Of course Butler was forcing his way out of Miami. Miami coach Erik Spoelstra, to his credit,  simply said “We work in a league of complexity” when describing the chaos that ensued as Butler was suspended and put away from the team.

“We’re in an unusual place right now, but really, it’s all complex, and we fully plan on operating within this complexity.”

Complexity in this case appears to be a substitute for dysfunction.

Butler’s days with Miami were numbered.

Warriors Steve Kerr coach and Spoelstra are close friends, both USA basketball coaches.

Kerr too knows how to coach in complexity.

We’ll see if the Warriors with Butler can make a run at it.