Seeing as it was the all star weekend in Toronto that initially sparked the inspiration for this blog, I decided to kick off Spurs in the 6 with a series of posts about my all star experiences. I orginally started these posts in the fan post section on Pounding the Rock. I will be reposting them here and finishing the story on Spurs in the 6.
Originally posted on Pounding the Rock on February 20, 2016
Wednesday February 10th
5-4-3-2-1…
So what do you do when you are a thirty eight year old professional and receive an offer to volunteer in the NBA-All Star Saturday night rehearsals as a stand in? You take the afternoon off work and head down to the Air Canada Centre (Canadian spelling eh) of course! So that is how my NBA-All Star Weekend adventure stared, running around logoman pylons and doing my best Karl-Anthony Towns big man impersonation.
Some takeaways and observations from this experience:
One sweet logo: I may be biased, I do live in Toronto after all, but the all-star logo this year was awesome. In particular, the primary CN Tower logo on the centre court line was gorgeous. Has anyone heard Zach Lowe weigh in with his impression?
You gotta work: I was amazed by the amount of behind the scenes work and personnel involved with the event. I knew a lot of work was involved but there were people, electronics and activity everywhere. While some of the crew was out of the NBA head office in New York, a lot of the people were actually from the individual teams. An all-star event and production team if you will. After watching NBA All-Star Saturday Night live and again on NBA League Pass, I have a new respect for these folks and the job they do (especially in light on the little public recognition they receive). Well done!
Follow the script: There is a script! Ok, not a la WWE – the contests were obviously not rigged, but a big script book nevertheless. It was interesting to see the “entertainment” (i.e., non-basketball) side of the NBA first hand.
Harder than it looks: For the record, I managed not to dribble the ball of my leg. That being said, the target you have to pass the ball through is actually much small than it looks on tv. Next time I am watching the skills challenge at home, I will cut the contestants a little slack on this part.
A little help please: I’m not sure who the advertising agency is, but BMO (one of Canada’s major banks) put out some slick PR around the all-star weekend including a ten foot bank machine and, of course, a Drake reference:
I love this game: I may have been the oldest volunteer by ten years or so but I totally felt like a kid out there on the actual NBA All Star court. I may not be getting any younger but my love of the game is timeless.
Coming soon Part 2 – dinner with Matt Bonner and Friends…
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