Celebrity All-Star Game

Well, if you didn’t know I was a Bill Simmons Fanboy already, the running diary might tip you off. Friday Night, Feb 15, Celebrity All Star Game: One of the days when I *really* wish I was a celebrity.

7:04 I wasn’t going to do this actually, but I just heard Stephen A. Smith’s voice from the other room, can’t turn that down.
7:05 You remember how great the old Rock N Jock specials on MTV were? The Celebrity All Star Game is about to show you why MTV stopped doing those.
7:06 Stuart Scott just made Chris Berman look up to date as he slipped and said “New Orleans Jazz”. Chris Paul didn’t even react, he might not know that there was a New Orleans Jazz.
7:10 Amare Stoudamire just had tarot cards read by a creepy old woman, I don’t think he’s ever been more confused in his life.
7:11 The New Orleans team is being introduced: Zach Gilford, AJ Calloway, Ne-Yo, James Lafferty.
7:12 I wish I could properly describe what Taylor Hicks just did as he was introduced. Some kind of hip-wiggling-step-dancing-moving-forward thing. If his goal was to look as unathletic as possible, then he succeeded.
7:13 Ruth Riley from the WNBA, is it mean that I secretly hope someone blocks one of her shots tonight?
7: 15 Seth Gilliam is introduced along with Master P. Looking forward to seeing P, two NBA contracts, that’s legit.
7:15 Gabrielle Union is the coach of this New Orleans team, turns out Stephen A is the GM, too bad, I thought he was playing. Looking at team 1, why can’t we get some former players involved in this?
7:16 Introducing the Hornets team, someone needs to tell Terry Crews to calm down, wow, the man is jacked and he’s fired up to play celebrity basketball. Last year’s MVP Tony Potts is back. Floyd Mayweather, James Lee, Swin Cash (the other token WNBA player), Common, Chris Tucker, and Deion Sanders round out the Hornets. (See, Deion is available, you’re telling me Shawn Kemp is too busy for this?)
7:17 How many times has Alyssa Milano, coach of the Hornets, been hit on tonight? Bill Walton introduced as GM, the one man who may make this entertaining.
7:18 Is it bad that I don’t recognize half the people involved in this, or is it bad for the Celebrity All Star Game? Also, as you read, they decided to call one team New Orleans and the other the Hornets, I’m sure this won’t become confusing later.
7:19 Ha, pretty funny joke from Alyssa Milano “Our plan is to shoot 3s in transition”. I wonder if she was fed that line.
7:20 Shaq makes an appearance. He knows he’s not playing Sunday right? Has anyone told him he wasn’t voted in? Seriously though, good for Shaq, good to see one of the NBA biggest faces make an appearance.
7:23 Shaq says “I’m going to make Amare Stoudamire even better”. And you wonder why I think it was a good trade.

7:26 Chris Tucker’s first shot looked awful…Master P’s did too.
7:28 Chris Tucker’s second shot looked great, what’s going on here.
7:29 Master P has passed twice to Ruth Riley let’s hope there isn’t anything behind this…
7:30 Lafferty has no handle, but made a good reverse layup, I was really hoping he wasn’t going to be good so I could make One Tree Hill jokes from now on.
7:31 Bill Walton just yelled “We need more shooting, run, run, shoot a 3”
7:32 Floyd Mayweather with a nice drive. What if he breaks an ankle during this game and it derails months of boxing training? You’re still telling me Shawn Kemp isn’t available? I mean, there’s no livelihood at stake for ex-players.
7:35 Does anyone think Stuart Scott is funny? “Is that Spanish paprika? Or red peppers?” “Ya’ll got any chicken biscuits?”. Some chef is cooking a dish, Stu is making comments, I don’t know why anything of this is happening.
7:36 Terry Crews is trying to take down the backboard…with his jump shots, wow.
7:37 Floyd Mayweather is fast. He’s a making a good play for MVP.
7:38 Master P has missed a lot of shots. Maybe I could have gotten an NBA contract. Wow.
7:39 I think this cooking segment ran longer than anyone expected, Stuart Scott just talked over the last 3 minutes of hoops.

7:41 LeBron James just did a 50 million pound challenge commercial. Word for the word the same as the Chris Paul commercial we saw just before it. It sounds like a good idea, but they couldn’t have come up with 2 or 3 scripts?
7:43 Why are they calling Master P “P. Miller”? Also, didn’t know the P stood for Percy.
7:44 Stephen A. Smith just yelled something in a pretend angry voice, or basically he did what he does on TV everyday.
7:45 They just tried a Voodoo doll on Stephen A, it’ll take a lot more than that to get him to stop talking.
7:46 There’s been only 12 minutes of running time basketball, and my interest is already waning.
7:47 Bill Walton just “coached” Chris Tucker “Chris, no more passing, just shots”. I would like it if Bill Walton was my coach.
7:48 Floyd Mayweather just abused Taylor Hicks, made a steal, and dished out a nice assist. The Hornets are pulling ahead as Master P is floundering.
7:49 TO is going to play? Wow, I’m looking forward to this, guy is an athlete, obviously. I probably didn’t need to tell you Terrell Owens has exceptional athletic abilities. All the Cowboys fans are going to shriek every time he jumps, he broke that ankle once before.
7:52 ESPN just decided to run replays of Stephan A’s rants from earlier. They clearly know what their audience wants.
7:53 “One of the greatest injustices of Western Civilization” -Bill Walton complaining that the other team gets TO.
7:53 Chris Tucker just gave TO the obligatory “we’re both black” hand shake.
7:54 The ref just passed the ball to Tony Potts for a free throw, and he didn’t catch it.
7:55 Master P and TO together, this 10 point lead might vanish shortly. Floyd Mayweather answers with a layup, Hornets are up by 7 by the way.
7:56 TO just walked into the game, and hit a deep jumper. The star power of this game just went up dramatically.
7:58 There’s a cameraman on the floor, the XFL tried this, and nothing the XFL tried worked. Truthfully I liked the cameraman on the field, I thought it was one thing the NFL should have taken from them.
8:00 Halftime Hornets 28, New Orleans 23. I’ve decided to drink some beers, I should have started this about 45 minutes ago.
8:04 We’re talking to this chef, who has no personality, again. I don’t know whose idea this was. Plus, his name is Chef Brian, people with names like “Brian” don’t become famous.
8:07 I’ve decided to use halftime to Youtube Rock N Jock clips…sadly the only thing that turned up was Marky Mark performing Good Vibrations at halftime.
8:10 The commentators are trying to talk real basketball during halftime, the success of the Celtics. Yes, they mentioned Leon Powe, but, again ESPN is totally missing the mark here on their target audience. I’m sure that all the hardcore NBA fans tuning in tonight to see Tony Potts play basketball wanted up to date analysis of the season, and I’m also sure they didn’t know the Celtics had the best record in the NBA.

8:17 Chris “Chucker” Tucker is bombing 3s, it’s ugly.
8:19 A million teenage girls just screamed, hard foul on James Lafferty by Terry Crews.
8:20 Carmelo Anthony is playing bongos, *this* is why I tuned in.
8:21 The third quarter is half over (thank God) and I don’t think we’ve had a full screen of basketball this half, but we’ve seen plenty of Chef Bland. Timeout, New Orleans has cut the lead to three.
8:24 Chef Brian is cooking mushrooms, Stuart Scott said this is like “Smellovision because it smells so good.” And I thought the writer’s strike was over. Side note, how come the writer’s were allowed to blog about the strike? Doesn’t that seem counterintuitive?
8:25 Taylor Hicks hit a nice mid range jumper, the shot looked good.
8:26 After one play that looked good, 3 shots were missed and two turnovers happened, in one minute.
8:27 Chucker just banked in a 3.
8:28 After closing it to 3, New Orleans is down 6, Stephan A is immediately benching his white players.
8:29 Announcers talking and eating, this was a great idea.
8:30 Chucker banked in another 3, I think odds he meant to do that are around 2%.
8:31 End of the third, Hornets lead 40 to 33.
8:36 TO just ran for an outlet pass and had trouble locating the ball. He’s a wideout, shouldn’t he be able to run a fly and catch the ball? It wasn’t even third down. Common did a surprisingly good job of running with him.
8:38 New Orleans closes it to 2, but I guess TO doesn’t play defense in basketball either, he barely made it over half court there.
8:39 TO just threw down. That’s basically what has kept me watching this game, I figured he could dunk the ball, now we know.
8:40 Chucker might actually be trying to bank 3 pointers. New Orleans up by 1, about 3 and a half minutes to go. I might be the only person in America who will make it through this whole game.
8:44 Master P has been nothing short of disappointing, the man has a basketball court at his house.
8:45 TO just made a lot of passes to Ruth Riley, he’s moving in on Master P’s territory.
8:46 Just to give you an idea of what a train wreck this is, Stuart Scott is somewhere in the building, and he’s mic-ed up, so we hear everything he says. The announcers are trying to talk when no one else is talking, which isn’t often since Ric Bucher is also walking around with a mic. Then there are sounds from the game of course, and while all this is going on, the stadium is pumping “Sweet Child O Mine” through the speakers. It’ a mess.
8:47 Stephan A just called a timeout, why is he prolonging this? And why haven’t we seen another shot of Alyssa Milano in the past hour and a half. Ha, the Karma Gods intervene. Coaches only get 1 timeout per half and he used it already, technical foul, game tied.
8:50 Taylor Hicks with a sweet spin move to the hoop to draw a foul, then he bricks 2 free throws to do the exact opposite of redeeming himself.
8:51 The refs have gone foul crazy, why not. Master P knocks down 2 to give the New Orleans a one point lead.
8:52 Bill Walton is diagramming a play, he drew one X and one circle. Apparently NBA coaches do call timeouts to say, “You dribble around until there’s 7 seconds left and drive”.
8:53 During some general sloppiness, Ruth Riley gets a block, and Tony Potts gets hammered going up for the final shot. The refs just waved everything off, clearly hoping to not have an overtime, and for that, I thank them.
8:57 A leprechaun sounding Ronald McDonald just gave TO the MVP award. He was 8 for 10, and clearly the most athletic person on the court (I would hope so).
8:59 I’m not sure why I just put myself through that. They really couldn’t scrap this for HORSE?