All-Star Weakend

I'm not a big fan of all-star games in any sport. They're just glorified exhibition games where there's nothing to play for. I guess in baseball they play for home field advantage in the World Series, but if there was ever a sport where home field advantage can be negated, it's probably baseball.

I told my dad right before going out on Saturday for Valentine's Day with my lovely that All-Star Saturday Night is ten times better than the actual game, but in all honesty it was a dud... well, except for Nate Robinson's dunk over Superman: that was pretty ill as the kids say.

Other than that, I'm glad all-star weekend is over and we can get back to actual basketball.

One team probably wishing the weekend would never end is the Phoenix Suns, who had to wake up Monday morning with a laundry list of task to accomplish. Step one was yesterday when they fired Terry Porter, a guy who quite frankly shouldn't have been hired in the first place. He was a bad fit from jump street, and even though new guy Alvin Gentry probably isn't the answer, he'll be a better fit, already promising to run and gun.

Step two was figuring out how to discipline the only player (at press time)in the NBA to have gotten into any kind of trouble during the weekend. Police pulled Suns' guard Jason Richardson over after he was cited going 90 in a 35. That by itself isn't earth-shattering, but the fact that his three-year-old son was in the back without a child seat escalated the incident. Dude, how can you not have a child seat in the back? That's like daddyhood 101. The Suns decided to suspend J-Rich for one game without pay.

Steps three and four? Figuring out what they want to do with Amare Stoudemire and Shaquille O'Neal. It's becoming clearer by the day that STAT is bolting in 2010, especially with the team disintegrating right before our very eyes. I'm obviously a little late on this (sorry, it's just that point in the semester where posting is becoming difficult), but pretty much every team in the NBA inquired about his availability. Some attractive deals arose with Miami, Memphis and Chicago, but now it looks like he's not going anywhere. Ditto with Shaq, who has nothing short of great this year but has $21 million due next season. How many teams honestly want that on their payroll?

They just seem totally confused out there in the desert. If the season ended today, they'd be in the lower end of a really bad lottery this year.

Big game for Maryland tonight as they begin an absolutely brutal stretch against Clemson. After the Tigers they get to host both North Carolina and Duke. Wow, thank you, schedule gods! This is a winnable game for the Terps, as the Tigers are in the midst of doing what they always do in February: coming back down to earth. Clemson always gets off to these ridiculous starts and people jump on their bandwagon, but when they hit the ACC things change and they're only a little bit better than mediocre most years. That being said, the Terps have to come to their place, and they've been awful on the road going 1-4 thus far.

I'm not making a prediction for this game, so don't even ask for one. It's hard for anyone to take you seriously with a 2-14 record in pick 'em.

I'll save my good ones for March.