Isaiah Thomas will compete in the Skills Challenge again this year. (Getty)
Welcome to three of the most compelling hours in all of sports: NBA All-Star Saturday night.
From IT vs. Towns in the Skills Challenge to Steph vs. Klay in the three-point contest to LaVine vs. Gordon in the dunk contest, with a little Hart vs. Draymond mixed in, last year’s festivities were among the most entertaining in recent memory, and we can only hope that 2017 provides a viable encore.
Here’s a look at everything you need to know to watch:
2017 NBA All-Star Saturday Night Schedule
8 p.m. ET: Skills Challenge
Next: Three-Point Contest
Next: Dunk Contest
2017 NBA All-Star Saturday Night Viewing Info
TV Channel, United States: TNT
TV Channel, Canada: TSN
Live Stream, United States: Sling TV, TNTDrama.com, or TNT Overtime
Live Stream, Canada: TSN.ca
Preview
Last year’s change to add big men to the Skills Challenge was quietly one of the NBA’s best moves for the weekend. It added a desperately needed competitive element, and the final turned out to be quite entertaining:
This year, look for IT to get revenge. It was surely embarrassing to lose a guard-favoring competition to a seven-footer–Kyle Lowry’s reaction in the above video is confirmation of that–and he’ll want redemption this time around. I think he gets the win, beating Nikola Jokic–the best passing big man in the league–in the finals.
Over in the three-point contest, Klay Thompson is the obvious choice after beating teammate Steph Curry last year. Still, Kyrie Irving has won this thing before, while there are a number of guys–C.J. McCollum, Eric Gordon, Kyle Lowry and Nick Young, to name a few–who can get hot in a hurry.
I would like Gordon as a sleeper if he wasn’t dealing with a back issue, so instead I’ll go with Young to pull off the upset. He’s knocking down an absurd 45.1 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes (Thompson is at 43.5 and Curry is at 46.8, for context), which is a good indicator of ability in a contest like this. Plus, it’s Swaggy P, so you know he’ll put on some kind of entertaining display either way.
Finally, we have the dunk contest. Of the four players, the most intriguing has to be Derrick Jones Jr., who has played sparingly in the NBA this year but is an insane leaper:
…. get ready for a show. #AirplaneMode ✈️ t.co/oTSEYCsLSf
Jones is a strong bet to steal the show Saturday night, but I’m not picking against Aaron Gordon, who put on one of the best shows in dunk-contest history last year.