A blasphemous All-Star Game hits Sin City

From now on, the NBA All-Star Game should always be played in Las Vegas. The ostentation, leisure and wantonness of the event are in sync with the very foundations of the city itself. The basketball played during an All-Star game is an incomplete version of the sport, because defense is scorned in favor of alley-oops and general outrageousness on the offensive side of the ball.

The outsider gets a similar impression of Las Vegas itself. The city seems like Times Square without the rest of New York City or like the French Quarter without the rest of New Orleans. It is the distillation of the typical American city into the vulgar essence that usually occupies just a single part. You don't go to Vegas for the boring art museums or the stodgy theater. You go for the fights, the gambling and the women. It's Bright Lights, Small City. Befitting the desert locale, Vegas seems to be a town of itinerants, not residents. The few locals are either career gamblers or prostitutes, right?

If Vegas is a city with no heart or soul, then the All-Star Game fits right in. Few things in this world are more meaningless than that annual self-celebration of obscene athleticism and obscene riches. It is truly on its own level, a level with which similar events of other major sports' cannot compete. In baseball, the winning League gets home-field advantage in the World Series. Regardless of the utterly amazing stupidity of this recently enacted rule, it is the law of the land. And with something at stake, the players seem to go at it harder. Football's Pro Bowl is an institution in Hawaii and is a necessary reward for those who successfully endure the rite of passage that is the NFL's regular season. Moreover, someone always forgets to tell one or two guys they are in a fake game, as evidenced by Sean Taylor's obliteration of a scrambling punter in this year's game.

Like the typical tourist's weekend in Vegas, maybe the All-Star Game is meant to be completely forgotten. The dunk contest is becoming less entertaining by the year, and the players in the game itself treat the proceedings like a slow-paced shootaround. Never again will a personal duel become the serious focal point of the game, as it did in 1998 when young gun Kobe Bryant challenged Michael Jordan at Madison Square Garden. NBA players these days are too sanitized and media savvy to play the role of the bad guy. Even Bryant, who was named MVP this year, sees no reason to challenge LeBron James or Dwyane Wade for the title of Best Player in the World. Of course, Bryant has a strong public image only three years removed from allegations of rape.

Which is all kind of ironic. When I watch an event in Sin City, I want to see some mischief. Why couldn't one player try to do something devious or memorable? Why couldn't Kevin Garnett have decided to go out and dominate on both sides of the ball? He would have pissed off the entire East squad, and all of a sudden we would have had a game; we would have had drama. Sports fans are tempted year after year by the possibilities inherent in the All-Star Game. With the best players on the court, one can be forgiven for hoping that something amazing will happen. But in recent years, it has been one disappointing game after another. The league has no idea how much it still misses Jordan.

Aside from the blackjack players, the only person trying to be competitive this weekend was Dick Bavetta, the 67-year-old referee who ran against former player Charles Barkley in a footrace. Barkley, variously known as "The Round Mound of Rebound" and "Sir-cumference," among other names, had youth on his side as well as a few extra pounds.

Clearly winning the race in the last leg, he decided to trot backwards in order to taunt Bavetta. The venerable ref, sensing an opening, dove across the finish line onto the hardwood court. When he arose, his knee was bleeding, and he looked distraught at coming up short despite the supreme effort. It was the only true emotion displayed in the desert that night.

Longtime watchers of the NBA on TNT undoubtedly enjoyed the race. For years Barkley, an analyst for the network, has been the butt of fat jokes from his co-analysts. This weekend, the jabs at Barkley reached new heights — after all, the race against the in-shape but very old Bavetta was just another fat joke, albeit one on a grand scale.

But TNT made a mistake: they let the sideshow upstage the main event. Don't blame the network — who could have expected such played-out shtick to cause more of a stir than a competition between more than 20 of the best athletes in the world? And this is Vegas! Where is the fun? Where is the sin?

Surely, the hundreds of parties in the city over the weekend helped on this front. But if you're going to sin off the court, why not sin on it? Maybe everyone was just too tired, which does not speak well of the possibility of Vegas getting its own NBA team. To the players, the All-Star Game itself truly means nothing, and having the game in the debauched southwestern oasis gives them the perfect excuse to conveniently forget the pathetic show they put on. If the game were played in Vegas every year, one day we all might conveniently forget to watch.