NBA Rising Stars Challenge 2012: Event Will Be More Exciting Than Dunk Contest

The 2012 NBA All-Star weekend is going to be strange.

Besides the fact that it’s in Orlando—which is a weird enough locale considering the Dwight Howard drama this season—the Rising Stars Challenge is going to be the second-most anticipated event after the actual game the weekend is named for.

That’s right, the game with first- and second-year players is going to have more buzz around it than the Slam Dunk Contest.

The reasons for this are simple.

Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Jeremy Lin are involved in the Rising Stars game.

Perhaps more telling, Chase Budinger, Derrick Williams, Iman Shumpert and Paul George are the Slam Dunk contestants.

For some ridiculous reason, the league could not entice any superstar dunkers like Blake Griffin into this year’s dunk contest and decided to just shorten it to one round and get rid of the judges.

It’s a sign that this once epic event is on a rapid decline and runs a risk of going the way of H-O-R-S-E and other gimmicks that have faded from the weekend.

Instead of hyping up the Dunk Contest this year, the league has wisely decided to revamp the somewhat boring Rookie vs. Sophomore challenge.

Shaq and Chuck drafted their teams last night and we will see the two TNT analysts try to best one another in the X’s and O’s departments.

They will coach a group of young studs that includes Lin, Griffin, Ricky Rubio, John Wall and a number of other future All-Stars.

The event is sure to be epic—full of alley-oop dunks, no look passes and other creative basketball moves that will rival anything that you might see in the weak Dunk Contest.