NBA All-Star Game Reset: A Rundown of Who's Competing in What, and Why

It's All-Star Saturday, and here at Bleacher Report we are going to have your coverage from start to finish, detailing all the events of the day.

Today's action will tip off with the most anticipated event of the All-Star Weekend. 

First up will be the Haier Shooting Stars Challenge, the single most anticipated event by the contestants in it—sometimes. You remember all those great moments form Shooting Star Challenges from years gone by? No? Probably because there really aren't any. 

For those that don't know, the Shooting Star Challenge consists of a current NBA player, a past NBA player and a WNBA player from the same city. The players alternate taking shots form six successive distances. 

Once a shot is made, the team can advance to the next distance. Whichever team makes all six shots in the shortest time wins the contest. 

The last distance is from half court and generally the contest is really about which team gets lucky and sinks a half court shot the fastest. 

Still, maybe you're just stoked for the dunk contest and this is your warm-up, or maybe you're related to someone in it, but here are the contestants and a general notion of why they are in the contest at all for those who are interested.  

Team Orlando 

Jameer Nelson is the starting point guard for the Orlando Magic and a former All-Star. I'm not sure why he's in it as he's really not a great shooter. He's made less than one third of his shots away from the rim. Orlando has a ton of great shooters and he's not one of them. 

Marie Ferdinand-Harris is in the contest even though she has nothing to do with Orlando because Orlando doesn't have a team. She sank the 100th three-pointer of her career this last season. 

Nick Anderson is their NBA great who sank 1,055 threes in the course of his NBA career. Perhaps it's because of Anderson, or maybe it's because it's the home-town team, but the Orlando crew is the odds on favorite to win. But if you're betting on this contest, there are 12-step programs you should be looking into. 

Team Atlanta 

Jerry Stackhouse is the NBA player who will be representing the Hawks in the absence of Joe Johnson. Stackhouse seems like he should be representing the retired players, but oddly enough, he's not actually retired. In fact he's even shooting .556 form deep this year, but that's not so impressive when you learn that it's because he's 5-of-9. 

Lindsey Harding is the WNBA contestant who will be joining him. Harding is only a .266 shooter from deep so it looks like if she's going to contribute, it's going to be in the short distance shots.

Steve Kerr is one of the great shooters in the history of the game. If Joe Johnson hadn't gotten injured, Atlanta would be a great choice to repeat but this might have to come down to Kerr by himself. Atlanta doesn't have much of a chance, but if Kerr land land that half-courter quick, who knows?

Team New York 

Landry Fields only has shot .265 from deep this year, but he hit .393 last year. I think it's more of a slump thing than anything else at work here. Fields should be able to contribute. 

Cappie Poindexter is a WNBA player that actually makes sense in this contest. The Liberty player has made 36 percent of her deep balls over the course of her career. Last year she was sixth in the WNBA in three-pointers made. She'll stand a good chance of contributing. 

Allan Houston shot .402 from deep over the course of his career. He made 1,305 in the course of his career, 27th most in NBA history. He can hit the long ball. The New York team is composed of shooters and that's what this contest is about. This is the team I'm picking to win. 

Team Texas 

Chandler Parsons is the Houston Rockets rookie who has worked his way into the starting lineup, but not by hitting the long ball. Parson only connects on 28.3 percent of his jump shots, so don't expect him to be doing too much here. 

Sophia Young is a scorer for the San Antonio Silver Stars a team with a lot of SASS but she is not a great shooter. She only hit on 27-of-111 three pointers in the course of her career. She's not going to be adding much. 

Kenny Smith shot .399 form deep for the course of his career. He was one of the better jump shooters of his era and he'll need to carry this team by himself. Whether he can stop shooting off his mouth long enough to shoot a ball will be questionable though. This team has little chance. 

The Taco Bell Skills Challenge

Consider me a weirdo, but I actually like this event. I think it's cleverly put together, and it's actually one that really does an effective job of measuring skill. The players are asked to take the ball through a course where they are required to make various passes and shots to assess their point guard abilities 

Past winners include Steve Nash, Derrick Rose, Deron Williams and Jason Kidd among others, but it's a pretty good testament to the quality of the event when you look at the quality of players who have won. This is also the one event where real stars don't seem to have a problem competing. 

Kryie Irving was the No. 1 pick in the NBA, and is solidifying his position as the presumptive rookie of the year. While he'll contend, I don't see him winning the contest, but it's not impossible. He's a well-balanced player. 

Tony Parker deserves to be more a part of the MVP conversation than he has been, though I wouldn't go so far as to say he's the MVP. I just mean he should be getting a few more "attaboys" than he's gotten. Parker is a quick player generally speaking, but in this company he's a pokey old man.  

Rajon Rondo is a payer that could either win this or humiliate himself. The problem is that you actually have to make shots away from the basket to this one, and Rondo isn't a player noted for his ability to do that. Everything else about his game is perfect for this. He could break the course record, or he could break the course record in a bad way. It all depends on how long it takes him to make his outside shots. 

John Wall has the speed to finish the course first. Whether he'll be accurate with his passing and shooting is a bit of a question mark though. With Wall it's not a question of speed, it's a question of skills, which is important in a skills challenge. 

Russell Westbrook has all the tools to win this thing. He's also got the competitive drive to take it seriously and want to win it. He would probably love to show that he has what it takes to be a "pure point guard" as he's fallen under criticism of late for being too much of a shooting guard. 

Deron Williams is the current course record holder at 25.5 seconds. The year he won the other contestants were Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade (a two-time champion) and Jason Kidd (a one-time champion), which is pretty stiff. Williams will be, and should be, the favorite. 

Foot Locker Three-Point Challenge

The Foot Locker Three-Point Challenge is a contest where each player has to go through five racks of balls, each of which has five balls on it. The racks are set up around the three-point line with two at either corner, two at either elbow and one at the top. The player chooses which corner to start at and then rotates around the court to the other side. He is awarded one point for every ball that goes in, with the exception of the last ball on the rack which is a two-point ball. 

Ryan Anderson is first in three-point makes and attempts this year. His three-point percentage of .434 isn't too shabby either and is good enough for 16th in the NBA. The other thing you like about Anderson is he really spreads his three-pointers around.

James Jones is the first of two Miami Heat who are competing. He is the defending champion. If he's not defending the championship, he's probably not in the contest this year. He's only hit 21 deep balls all season long. 

Mario Chalmers is the other Heat. He's hitting .456. He tends to favor the corners when he hits his threes, though, and there don't seem to be a lot coming from the elbows. He's got an outside shot to win, but I see him hitting a lot on the corner racks, but missing a lot in the middle. 

Kevin Durant is a career .358 shooter from deep. He rarely hits them form the corners though. In fact over the last season and a half it only looks like he's hit about a dozen from either side. He hits most of his threes from straight up top or the elbows. The key to this contest is being able to hit from all the spots where the racks are and Durant hasn't shown that ability. I expect him to get bounced in the first round. 

Kevin Love is hitting .348 for the season from deep, which is great for a power forward who is grabbing 15 boards a game. It's not so great for a player in the Three-Point Contest. He's another one who doesn't hit them from the corners. Love probably won't fare well as he'll struggle with the first rack and probably never heat up. I love Love's game, but he's not a threat here. 

Anthony Morrow is not a "star" but that's the tradition of this contest. It's not a popularity contest, it's a three-point shooting contest. Morrow hits .402 of his threes and has an even distribution of them. If anyone other than Anderson can wrestle the title away from Jones, it's going to be Morrow. 

Sprite Slam Dunk Contest

The Sprite Slam Dunk Contest will be different this year as there will only be one round consisting of three dunks. The viewing public will be allowed to vote on Twitter. Whoever gets the most votes wins. 

Chase Budinger will stand a chance to win in the sense that he's a white man, and we all know that White Men Can't Jump. Whether that's true or not, is really completely irrelevant. The perception is there and if Budinger surprises, he could be a winner. He'll have a lower bar than the others. 

Jeremy Evans is a replacement player, filling in for Iman Shumpert, who by virtue of having a couch and a man named Jeremy Lin would have run away with this thing had he not gotten injured. Evans has a chance to surprise though, as he's shown a Griffin-like ability to "Mozgov" opponents.  

Paul George is the presumptive favorite. He's a tremendously athletic player and promises to have a dunk we've never seen before. It'll be interesting to see what that is and if it's really a new dunk or just a new variation with an old dunk. George is more of a finesse dunker and finesse dunkers tend to fare better. 

Derrick Williams is the best power dunker of the group. He can get in the air. He's strong. He might be the best in-game dunker in the contest, but I'm not sure how his particular set of talents translate into dunk contest though. The thing is we haven't seen any of these guys in the contest before so it's all just pure guess-work.