So we're through with all this All-Star stuff right?
Time to get back to actual NBA basketball?
Last night's All-Star Game provided an entertaining finish to what was a lackluster weekend by most accounts, with Kevin Durant being named MVP in the West's 152-149 win.
While the first half of the match was essentially a series of dunks, bad shots and full-court alley-oop attempts, the second half became quite competitive with the East storming back to get within one point of the West.
Unfortunately, down three with seconds left in the match,"4th Quarter LeBron James" showed up.
Sunday's marquee event luckily overshadowed what was a fairly dismal Saturday night. The 3-point contest was solid, however far from epic, but the dunk contest fiasco was so rough that even NBA players voiced their displeasure over the way things went down.
In fact NBA players were quite vocal about the entire Saturday spectacle and hopefully the NBA makes some changes for next year.
That's not to say that there weren't some highs though from Saturday night, which The Basketball Jones examines, and for all the ups and downs, check out SB Nation's full recap of the weekend.
One final note about All-Star weekend - it usually spawns trade talk, and in this case, lots of talk about Dwight Howard, whose future in the city that hosted said All-Star game, is in doubt. The latest rumour regarding potential trade scenarios for Howard, was one involving the Toronto Raptors' own Jose Calderon. The original rumour had Jose going to the Magic along with Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol, and Jameer Nelson and Hedo Turkoglu ending up in LA.
However the Magic have since denied that rumour, which is great for Raptors' fans considering Toronto was apparently getting a bucket of KFC in this deal.
That doesn't mean talks are dead, and there's certainly a lot of discussion centered around Jose right now, but I'm guessing if he's going out the door, we'd be hearing about Toronto getting some significant cap relief or young prospects back.