I paid almost 30 Canadian Loonies to watch the 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend. Well, technically, I spent that much only to watch All-Star Saturday because one half of Canada’s sports media duopoly didn’t have access to Sunday, so I had to find…other means to watch the rest of the weekend’s mediocrity—and mediocrity it most certainly was.

The Three-Point Contest was passable, with fairly close matchups each round and Dame-Time coming in clutch to take home the trophy for the third time—in his warmups, no less. The man hasn’t played all season but can still (in Charles Barkley voice) “shoot that thang!” The “Shooting Stars” event returned after more than a decade, with Jalen Brunson’s team coming out on top. It was fun to see him and his dad team up to take the win, and a little funny to see how rookie Kon Knuepple crumbled under the pressure for the second time in a night. 

Now, let’s get to the event that has been plaguing the NBA All-Star Weekend for nearly a decade: The Dunk Contest. Once again, the league brought in a bunch of nobodies (and Jaxson Hayes, for some reason) to take part in the once prestigious event. And once again, it was a bafflingly mediocre showing. Listen, I have no problem with a bunch of nobodies being part of the contest; LeBron ostensibly made it so that no superstar wants even to take a whiff of the event, and we’ve all had to live with it since. And Aaron Gordon was a relative “nobody” in 2016, and he, alongside LaVine, gave us arguably the greatest contest of all-time. This year’s contest, however, was very much not one of the greatest of all time. 

Aside from one dunk from finalist Carter Bryant and another from eventual winner Keshad Johnson, there was a stark lack of creativity, showmanship, competitiveness, and overall sense of urgency from all the participants. Whatever happened to Dwight Howard coming out as Superman? Or Aaron Gordon jumping over mascots and using drones? Sure, those things may be a little gimmicky, but at least they made for fun television.

Finally, you have the All-Star game. Or games, I should say. This year around, the teams were split into three, with two teams representing the US and one representing the rest of the world, and all of them participating in a mini bracket-style tournament. Aside from the final matchup between the two Teams USAs (which, let’s be honest, only happened because all the stars from Team World like Giannis, Jokic, and Shai decided to all be injured), the games were actually decent. Kawhi decided to turn back the clock and become Raptors Kawhi for the semi-finals, and the level of competition was far more energetic than what we’ve gotten in years past. I still think I prefer the East versus West set-up, but I didn’t mind how this one turned out.

The NBA has been flailing for years, if not decades, to make the All-Star weekend a worthwhile event. And though there were some highlights this year around, it still felt incredibly underwhelming. Honestly, the best part was seeing Spike making everyone uncomfortable by wearing Palestine flags on his outfits. The man always knows what’s up. F*ck LeBron, Steph, and the rest of the league (aside from Kyrie) for not standing up against genocide.