All-Star Saturday odds: Will bigs or guards own Skills Challenge?
This weekend’s All-Star Saturday events in Toronto offer the usual mix of exciting young players, big names, and time-tested formats. This year, we’re handicapping all three events — the Taco Bells Skills Challenge, the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest, and the Verizon Slam Dunk — so you know who to watch closest. Read on for a look at the favorite, the contenders, and the dark horses.
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One thing to address up top: Yes, the Taco Bell Skill Challenge once again fails to include any events that test the competitors’ actual Taco Bell skills. The delightful Ryan Nanni of Everyday Should Be Saturday has some ideas on how the NBA and its corporate partner might address this shortcoming in the future.
And another one: When the NBA announced the participants in this year’s Skills Challenge, the field included defending champion Patrick Beverley of the Houston Rockets, who has since been scratched with an ankle injury and replaced by Denver Nuggets rookie Emmanuel Mudiay, and the bracket wasn’t yet finalized. It is now, with the guards on one side and the big fellas on the other:
Favorite
Isaiah Thomas: The Boston Celtics All-Star is probably mover in the bunch with the ball in his hands, which seems like it might matter in a timed event in which contestants scoop a ball off a pedestal, dribble around five pylons, fire a chest pass through a standing target, pick up a new ball, speed-dribble the length of the court, try a layup or dunk, grab the ball, racing to a designated spot and trying to hit a 3-pointer. He’s also only member of the field who’s run through this obstacle course before, losing to Beverley in the first round of last year’s competition, and as your man Henry Adams once said, “All experience is an arch to build upon.” What, you thought this was going to be a Taco Bell Skills Challenge preview that didn’t include the thoughts of an American historian descended from two presidents?
Bovada line: There isn’t one — which is entirely reasonable, because man, betting on the Skills Challenge seems downright dark! — so let’s go with Covers.com’s numbers: 33/10
Keep an Eye On
Draymond Green: The wrinkle in this year’s competition was adding four frontcourt players to the mix for the first time. Of the four bigs in the bunch, the Golden State Warriors playmaker seems like the best bet to successfully complete all the tasks in a timely fashion … and the most likely to deploy some withering trash-talk to rattle and slow his opponents along the way.
Covers.com odds: 5/1
C.J. McCollum: There’s a line in the Academy Award-winning film Mark Wahlberg movie “Shooter” that has become a favorite mantra of bearded Irish knockout artist/UFC champion Conor McGregor: “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.” Smooth is the Portland Trail Blazers guard’s stock in trade. He seems to get wherever he wants and whatever he wants on the court with calm, measured movements, and he’s the most accurate pull-up 3-point shooter in the competition, which could prove valuable on that final shot. McCollum’s come into his own this season, developing into a full-fledged scoring and playmaking threat alongside Damian Lillard in the Blazers’ revamped starting lineup; why couldn’t C.J. join his teammate and two-time Skills Challenge champ as one of the true greats of the Taco Bell game?
Covers.com odds: 5/1
Karl-Anthony Towns: The Minnesota Timberwolves rookie is already, like, way better at everything than I thought he’d be — and I thought he’d be really good pretty fast! — so why should adapting to a competition geared toward significantly smaller and quicker players be any different? My one fear is that Towns is able to upset Draymond in Round 1 with an impressive performance, only to beat himself up for taking a suboptimal route around a pylon or something and wind up psyching himself out before the semifinals.
Covers.com odds: 10/1
The Field
DeMarcus Cousins: No shade on the Sacramento Kings double-double machine’s skills, but this here’s a sprint, and as we all know, Boogie’s more into marathons.
Covers.com odds: 17/2
Jordan Clarkson: The Los Angeles Lakers sophomore’s got the gifts to make a go at it, but could stumble at the final 3-point shot when Kobe decides to call his own number and step in for the kid; when time’s of the essence, you can only afford so many clanged fadeaways.
Covers.com odds: 5/1
Anthony Davis: Yes, the New Orleans Pelicans phenom played point guard before a late high-school growth spurt changed his position and career trajectory, and boasts one of the smoothest face-up games of any big man in the league. And yet, given how little has gone right for the Pelicans this season, maybe we should tamp down our expectations and hope that he makes it through the event without losing a limb or getting inadvertently sideswiped by Pierre or something.
Covers.com odds: 8/1
Emmanuel Mudiay: The late addition’s keys to All-Star Weekend success — offered for the Rising Stars Challenge, but co-opted for our purposes here because, y’know, who cares — are positive, but really make you question if he’s got the killer instinct to take out the more experienced competition:
Skills Challenge greatness is for those who seize it, Emmanuel. Be bold, be vicious and be fast, lest ye be overtaken. (That sounds like pretty good advice for ordering at Taco Bell, too, now that I think about it.)
Covers.com odds: none as of press time, due to his late addition
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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