Following Rajon Rondo’s torn ACL earlier this month, Erik Spoelstra, the coach of the Eastern Conference NBA All-Stars, was left with some life-altering decisions to make. Namely, whom would he place in the starting line-up in the absence of Rondo?
Instead of choosing the-obvious-next-guy-in-line-at-the-point-guard-position, Kyrie Irving, he inserted Chris Bosh. A power forward. This allowed LeBron James to start the game at the point guard position, which was pretty cool. Bosh’s performance, however, was not cool. At all.
Spo’s loyalty to his fellow LeBronette is great and all, but come on. This is Kyrie vs. Bosh we’re talking about. Bosh apparently agreed, transforming his game into a performance art exhibition.
In the first half, Chris Bosh managed to throw up more airballs than made baskets, including this gem:
You’d think that he’d redeem himself in his next few possessions, but he followed that up with two more airballs, not to mention he allowed Paul to do this to him:
And if that wasn’t enough, Tony Parker was all like “Anything you can do, I can do better… especially if I get to do it against Chris Bosh.”
By the end of the half, his Western Conference counter-part, Blake Griffin had smashed down six dunks. Luckily for Bosh, he never ceased to get out of the way, like Tyson Chandler did for Kevin Durant here:
Not enough? Dwight Howard nailed more jumpers than Bosh did.
When Joakim Noah crossed up Zach Randolph, I just sort of assumed it was Bosh out of force of habit.
The best part about all of this? Spoelstra still had unswaying belief in his power forward, not taking him out of the fourth quarter until the two-and-a-half-minute mark, when even Bosh’s mom had figured out that was contributing nothing to the game.
Speaking of the last two and a half minutes, crunch time in the NBA All-Star game was when Kobe Bryant decided to play defense for the first time this season. Nothing personal, right?
And here’s a final play, signifying why Joakim Noah needs to be selected for every All-Star game for the rest of his career as well as why Chris Paul was your 2013 NBA All-Star MVP.
See y’all next year!
Backcourt Bias will be back this Thursday. You can follow Seerat Sohi at @DamianTrillard in the meanwhile. Stay tuned to Fansided for complete NBA coverage!