All-Star games are dumb. They were created in an era when fans rarely got to see glimpses of greats outside their local team, division or conference. Specifically in baseball, where other than the one-off nationally televised game you could go entire seasons without seeing stars from the other league. They were showcases. A way to bring the best players in the world into one venue, for one game, and put it on national TV.

It’s no surprise that the allure of these games began to diminish with the advent of SportsCenter and cable TV. But they remained relevant throughout the 90s and early 2000s partly because ancillary events like the Home Run Derby, Skills Competition*, dunk and three-point contests made for compelling TV and usually better showcases of skill and talent than the games themselves.

Social media has eroded even those events.

Why do we need a dunk content when a Snapchat story can quickly show us the best dunks every night? Why do we need a home run derby when YouTube MLBAM’s proprietary video player can cut up the longest dingers of the week? Who needs a skills competition when you can get GIFs of sick dangles on Twitter? You get the point. All-Star games and their associated competitions are a dying breed. They’ve become all-purpose showcases for their sport, a sort of conference for all those in its particular orbit. But if there’s one thing they still do well, it’s show off young, maybe under-the-radar talent. Introduce the world to the next great thing. They are celebrations of the game. Which makes the fact that Joel Embiid didn’t make it complete bullshit.

I’m cynical enough that, quite honestly, I generally don’t care about this stuff. It’s why I rarely Tweet the hashtag du jour for [local player] to get [honor] by tweeting [hashtag] [encouraging phrasing]. Maybe I’m just getting old. A wild night for me last night was watching Rachel Maddow and then Sean Hannity and experiencing the dizzying whiplash that accompanied the shift in viewpoint. But it blows my mind that the NBA didn’t find some way to crowbar Joel Embiid, a freak athlete with genuine All-Star credentials and a smile and personality to match, into its biggest mid-season event. The NBA, more than any other major sports league, is all about the show. It’s entertainment. Celebrities are as much a part of the experience as players and coaches themselves. What’s a Lakers game without Jack? What’s a Knicks game without Spike? What’s a Sixers game without… um, M. Night? Whatever. You get the point. Embiid fits into that ecosystem so well that it seemed almost natural that he was campaigning to make the team solely so he could bang his celebrity crush. It’s like that sexception game you joke about with your wife or husband, but only it could’ve really happened. I want to bang Rihanna. Oh OK hunny you have fun with that I’ll be ordering our Hello Fresh. Embiid was going to bang Rihanna whatever celebrity he claims wasn’t Rihanna, and we were all going to watch. Or something like that. Point is– he both deserved to be in the game and would’ve made the show that much better. If the fan vote was any indication, Sixers and basketball fans in general wanted him there, certainly over Paul Frigging Boring Ass Millsap. No thanks.


*I turned down an offer from Dunkin Donuts to go to LA this weekend and Tweet about the hockey All-Star Game on their behalf. Partly because I didn’t want to whore myself out to Dunkin Donuts, and partly because the hockey All-Star game is really bad.