By Kyle Jorrey
Sports Editor
As far as I’m concerned, the NBA All-Star Weekend is to professional sports all-star festivities what Beyonce Knowles is to Destiny’s Child. It’s the only one of the group worth watching.
Because an all-star game is intended for the sole purpose of making money, no player really wants to get hurt playing in one. For this reason, watching football and hockey all-star games, two normally high contact sports, is like watching a professional boxing match where the two fighters are only allowed to slap one another in the forehead.
And the baseball all-star game … well, lets just say after last years “ending the game with the score tied” fiasco, it may be permanently out of the running. The Home Run Derby used to be cool, but that was before anabolic steroids made every home run hitter look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So all were left with is the NBA All-Star game, and somehow, year after year, it continues to maintain some type of legitimacy and entertainment value.
This year was no different, and the typical excitement was added to by the impending third and final retirement of Washington Wizard Michael Jordan, the greatest player ever to play the game. Being it MJ’s final All-Star appearance, the 13-time All-Star was given a hero’s farewell, complete with a week’s worth of tributes.
All of this was a fitting tribute to the legendary Air Jordan, but the treatment of the game itself was not.
With the game all tied up in the first overtime 136-136, the Eastern All-Stars went to Jordan, who despite missing a chance to end the game in regulation was given the opportunity again. As the clock approached zero, Jordan turned and fell away from the basket with Phoenix Sun Shawn Marion nearly on top of him.
After doing it so many times in his career that it had come to be expected, Jordan did it again — he hit the game winning shot — or so he thought.
The fairy-tale MJ finish was soon quelled when Indiana Pacer Jermaine O’Neal was called for a shooting foul behind the three-point arc with one second remaining. The call sent Los Angeles Laker star Kobe Bryant to the free-throw line to shoot three free throws, he hit two, sending the game to a second overtime and denying Jordan what would some reporters have since said would have been a fitting All-Star send-off.
In the second OT, the Western All-Stars dominated and eventually went on to win the game 155-145.
After the contest, the media had the nerve to question Kobe’s decision to make the free throws, insinuating that he should have missed on purpose to give Jordan his fantastic finish. This is an insult to Bryant, to Jordan and to the game.
In making those free throws, Bryant simply did exactly what Jordan has been doing his entire career — he played to win.
Whether its an all-star game or not, fans should expect athletes to give it their all, otherwise, what would be the point of playing the 
game at all? Yes, Bryant could have missed on purpose, but I’m sure MJ himself knows it wouldn’t be right.
Jordan never needed any favors on his way to becoming the best in his sport, and even as he nears age 40, he doesn’t need any now. Let the game happen as it may, and let athletes give us real memories, not produced ones.
February 13, 2003