When Sabrina Ionescu and Stephen Curry lit it up last year at NBA All-Star weekend in Indianapolis in a three-point contest for charity, it was unquestionably one of the highlights of last season’s NBA All-Star festivities.
One could probably make a strong case that it was the highlight of last season’s All-Star festivities on the MNBA side of the basketball ledger.
It also would have made perfect sense if Ionescu and Curry were to run it back the following year at San Francisco’s Chase Center. After all, Curry will go down in history as a legend with the Golden State Warriors. In addition, Ionescu is originally from Walnut Creek. Both are Bay Area icons.
Instead – not so much.
What the NBA did was the equivalent of overplaying on offense that it had an offensive foul called against it. Instead of simply running it back with only Ionescu and Curry, the NBA attempted to do a two-on-two event featuring Ionescu, Curry, Klay Thompson…and Caitlin Clark.
It was widely speculated that Ionescu and Clark would participate in last season’s 3-Point Contest at WNBA All-Star weekend at Footprint Center. Clark has become the toast of women’s basketball circles these past few seasons in part for her proficiency from 3-point range. We also remember what Ionescu did at WNBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas a couple years ago.
Ionescu won that season’s 3-Point Contest by setting a new record for either the W or the MNBA with 37 points in a single round.
Clark did not participate in last season’s 3-Point Contest – and she decided not to do so in the San Francisco Bay Area either. The reason she gave for saying thanks but no thanks to the NBA is certainly understandable.
According to a statement provided by Excel Sports Management – which represents Clark – to The Athletic, Clark would prefer for her first 3-Point Contest to be in Indianapolis – where WNBA All-Star will emanate from this summer. That is certainly understandable on Clark’s part – make a 3-Point Contest debut in front of one’s home fans.
But it is another sign how the WNBA-NBA sphere has so wrapped itself around Clark that it is willing to get rid of an entire event solely because of her absence. If Clark decided not to do NBA All-Star’s 3-Point Contest, there was no reason why they simply could not have ran it back with simply Ionescu and Curry. After all, both are household names in the Bay Area.
This season’s NBA All-Star festivities are likely to be one weekend-long advertisement for the newest team in the WNBA in the Golden State Valkyries. Even though Ionescu wears the uniform of the defending champion New York Liberty, it also would have been another opportunity to advertise the excitement of WNBA basketball coming to the Bay Area.
By the way – the Liberty will be on the road at the Valkyries on June 25.
In the financial realm, there is a phrase that often gets thrown around in situations like there where someone was “penny wise and pound foolish.” This appears to be the case here with the NBA.
According to a post from Shams Charania of ESPN, the NBA was looking to “raise the bar” from what they did last year in Indianapolis. Here is the thing – simply running it back with Ionescu and Curry would have raised the bar because of the location of this season’s All-Star festivities. One of the Bay Area’s favorite daughters and one of the Bay Area’s favorite adopted sons. The NBA simply needed a layup when it tried to go for a 3-Pointer from the logo.
The NBA was so committed to its Plan A of Clark, Ionescu, Curry and Thompson that it should have simply recognized that a one-on-one 3-Point rematch of Ionescu and Curry would have been a more than viable Plan B.
Instead, the Bay Area is getting somewhat robbed. While this upcoming NBA All-Star weekend will still have plenty of pomp, plenty of circumstance and plenty of glitz and glamour with celebrities hobnobbing with their favorite ballers, we cannot help but think that there are hoops aficionados in the Bay Area (and there are a lot of them there) thinking they got robbed of what Indianapolis got to experience last year.
