NBA Alternative All-Star Weekend 2019: The Celebrity Game

The NBA’s All-Star Weekend is a celebration of the league’s best and brightest. Unfortunately, there isn’t room for everyone who deserves it. That’s why The Step Back is planning their Alternative All-Star Weekend.

The NBA All-Star Celebrity Game is rarely that engaging of an event. Featuring a seemingly random assortment of actors, musicians, and former players, the Celebrity Game does not often showcase well-played basketball and the drama is limited as it’s difficult to think of many sporting events less consequential than this one. Yet every year, many basketball fans, including myself, tune in to watch it despite its inherent shortcomings. Part of the issue is the celebrities chosen to participate are often not the best — a bunch of has-beens and C-listers and former players who are entirely disengaged.

To try to remedy this, I decided to create my own fantasy Celebrity Game, featuring a number of my favorite writers, musicians, and other luminaries I would love to see take the court in Charlotte. There’s that famous quote about what is most personal also being the most universal, so in theory, this assortment of celebrity participants being who I would like to see participate means that this game would have vast appeal. I’m not sure it would work that way in actuality, but regardless here is my dream Celebrity Game lineup.

Joan Didion

Joan Didion is a tremendous writer who has won a number of accolades including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Presidential Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters, yet one can’t help but feel her legacy would be all the more improved if she would agree to appear in the upcoming Celebrity Game. I am a bit concerned that the 84-year-old Didion would literally die if someone set a pick on her, but the mental image of her crossing someone up and then driving to the basket fills me with immeasurable joy and the chance of making that a reality is absolutely worth the risk.

Hanif Abdurraqib

Abdurraqib is one of the best writers working today and making an appearance in the Celebrity Game would be a great way for him to promote his tremendous new book, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest. Abdurraqib is a reliably humorous and insightful commentator on the NBA as well, tweeting regularly about the league’s happenings, and his masterful essay collection, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, features a piece on Allen Iverson’s iconic crossing over of Michael Jordan in 1997. Perhaps Abdurraqib could follow in Iverson’s footsteps, making Carly Rae Jepsen or Julien Baker — two other artists he’s written about — look silly by crossing them up on All-Star Weekend, bringing things full circle.

Rhea Butcher

A comedian who, like myself and LeBron James, hails from Akron, Ohio, Rhea is a devoted baseball fan who plays recreationally and also hosts a podcast devoted to the sport, but they have also shown an interest in the NBA, especially in LeBron. I’d love to watch Rhea in the Celebrity Game, and also, their being present at All-Star Weekend festivities would make it somewhat likely that they could meet LeBron, and being able to play a hand in making that happen would bring my Akron-loving heart lots of joy.

The Starters

For many years now, the Starters — JE Skeets, Tas Melas, Leigh Ellis, and Trey Kerby — have lobbied for inclusion in the Celebrity Game, and granted the power to make their dream come true, who am I to deny them? I’ve been listening to them since the Basketball Jones days a decade ago and am happy to be able to repay them for the joy listening to them has brought me throughout the years. Plus, I’m kind of eager to see if Leigh Ellis can live up to his hype as a sharpshooter.

Julien Baker

One of our greatest young songwriters, Julien Baker has released two highly acclaimed solo records along with a collaborative record with Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers. Though she has not revealed much of an interest in the NBA that I’m aware of, I believe she would be a great addition to the game. Baker, the patron saint of making me cry in public, could possibly deploy her songs as weapons against her opponents, causing them to reflect upon their deepest hopes, dreams, and fears instead of playing defense, opening up a free path to the basket so Baker could get uncontested layup after uncontested layup.

Carly Rae Jepsen

Jepsen, the singer of the internationally known hit “Call Me Maybe,” and of the 2015 pop masterpiece, Emotion, will already be in attendance at the Celebrity Game, singing the Canadian National Anthem, so it makes sense that she should just suit up and play as well. Teammates would be wise to be wary of potential ball-hogging considering her latest single “Party for One,” which if taken to its fullest conclusion, would make her a bit of a ball hog, precluding her from operating in any sort of pass-heavy, motion offense, potentially limiting her effectiveness.

Anthony Randolph

The Celebrity Game almost always features a few former NBA players and there’s not many I’d rather see make a triumphant return to NBA action than Anthony Randolph. He has not played in the NBA since 2014, but since then he has been a EuroLeague champion and a member of the All-EuroLeague team. His presence in the Celebrity Game would honestly be pretty unfair, but watching him dominate would be a nice bit of vindication for those of us who believed so much in his initial promise a decade ago. And perhaps it would be a way for him to catch the eyes of general managers, a way for him to triumphantly re-enter the league after a five-year absence. I mean, the Warriors could use some frontcourt depth with Damian Jones out for the season, after all.

Bob Dylan

In his enigmatic and engaging memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan writes rapturously about the joy that watching Pete Maravich gave him. Dylan calls Maravich, “the holy terror of the basketball world” and “the high flyin’ magician of the court,” saying Maravich “could have played blind.” In the loosely structured Celebrity Game, Dylan would be able to attempt doing his best Maravich impression, and if he managed to win the game’s MVP trophy, I’m sure that would look great on the mantle next to his Nobel Prize.

Bernie Sanders

After winning the 2016 New Hampshire primary, Sanders celebrated by shooting some baskets with his grandchildren in a high school gym, showing both an incredible consistency and an unorthodox form. Sanders regularly played pick up in his younger days and was remembered by former running mates for his craftiness and reliability from the mid-range. Sanders is much older now than he was then, but I would certainly like to see him play a few spot minutes in Charlotte this month, showcasing the reliable jumper that his old friends remember so well.

Larry David

He’d be a great alternate if Bernie Sanders can’t make it.

Brian Wilson

I think that selecting Brian Wilson to make an appearance in the celebrity game would annoy Mike Love and, for me, that’s reason enough to do it.

Marie Queenie Lyons

In 1970, Soul Fever, the debut record from a mysterious singer named Marie Queenie Lyons was released on De Luxe records. Soul Fever remains one of the peaks of southern soul music — a work of deep emotional resonance that also wears the influence of James Brown’s funk stylings very well. Yet, after releasing this record, Lyons all but disappeared and almost nothing at all is known about her. Admittedly, my inviting her to participate in this game is more of a ruse to learn her story and what she’s been up to for the last five decades since recording her lone record than because I think she’d be good at basketball, but it’s a curious story and one with gaps that this invitation could help fill allowing fans of southern soul to get a fuller picture of the genre they love so much.

Werner Herzog

I’m not sure that Herzog would be any good at actually playing basketball, but I am confident that he’d be great at meditating about the nature of basketball and celebrity in his own inimitable way. It’s doubtful that such ruminating is what the celebrity game has been missing, but it’d be an interesting change of pace.

Kyle MacLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper

For many, the revival series of Twin Peaks from 2017 was marred by the prolonged absence of special agent Dale Cooper, who viewers fell in love with in the original series nearly thirty years ago. Perhaps fans would be appeased a bit if MacLachlan played in the celebrity game in character as Cooper, providing a sense of closure that the tremendous, but open-ended, conclusion of the series fails to offer. He would also earn the distinction of being the first Celebrity Game participant to play while wearing a suit, so there’s that as well.

James Dolan

I’d just like to see him get dunked on by Anthony Randolph while he’s trying to engage everyone on the court in conversation about his band.

St. Vincent

St. Vincent, one of the best songwriters of the past decade recently tweeted her desire to play in the 2020 All-Star Game and while she’s unlikely to be selected to play in the game considering she has never played in the NBA, I’d like to make her wish come as true as possible. She claims to have been practicing her fadeaway jumper and watching her craftily nail turnaround jumper after turnaround jumper would be very satisfying.

Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne, and Diana Taurasi, and Breanna Stewart

In past years, WNBA players have made an appearance in the Celebrity Game and doing so is a great way to promote the WNBA, which, unfortunately, despite featuring several of the best basketball players in the world is an underwatched product that deserves much more attention and love from NBA fans. Watching a few of the WNBA’s stars on All-Star Weekend make celebrities look silly may be a way to draw more attention to the league, piquing the interest of fans who may be more likely to watch the league once it tips off this summer.

Young Thug

The 6-foot-3 rapper has played a major part in redefining what a rapper can sound like since he burst into the public consciousness in 2014 with his hit singles, “Stoner,” “Danny Glover,” and “Lifestyle.” His unorthodox flow and sense of style are truly captivating and he has released several of the best mixtapes of the 2010s. In the music video for “Power,” from his 2015 mixtape Slime Season, Thug is shown doing a between the legs dunk near the end, and though it’s unlikely that the rim was set at regulation height, that’s still a pretty impressive showing of athleticism regardless. And if Young Thug is half as good at basketball as he is at rapping, he’s a great dark horse pick for Celebrity Game MVP.