These all-star events are all fun and games — or not

It has been widely implied that the NBA All-Star Game has been improved and should be taken seriously. Just kidding.

Nothing is less genuine than the NBA’s annual fiddling and fumbling for attention, reducing the honor of recognition to gimcrackery, although there could be some sort of contract bonus involved.

Why any authentic all-star would want to be associated with a weekend carnival of synthetic silliness will be explained anon.

Say this about that. Nothing can be taken seriously when the affair boasts the inclusion of “acclaimed comedian” Druski and “influencer” Khaby Lane on its roster. Or when Barry Bonds is a coach. Even Dennis Rodman must be shaking his head.

The Bulls’ contribution to the event is the recent somebody named Matas Buzelis, a replacement for another somebody named Yves Missi, or maybe it is the other way around. One of them will be playing a “futures” game, meaning the Czech is in the mail or something.

The important thing — stick with me here — is that instead of one all-star game, there are now three, the explanation lost somewhere between the Ruffles and the Castrol, among the titular sponsors and unashamed culprits for a weekend of something resembling basketball.

Alas, none of it includes Caitlin Clark, the biggest name in the world of basketball, who was asked but declined to participate in the silliness.

The tendency of authentic all-stars to applaud one another up and down the court until, as evidenced last year, the score threatened to run into quadruple digits became concerning.

The players just weren’t taking things seriously. Scoring 397 points between the two sides tends to cheapen everything. But, once again, including “celebrity” Shaboozey in things is begging to be mocked.

But at least games were given the natural geographical structure of East and West, promoting an ersatz regional interest. The new answer is to divide the all-stars into four pods, each one coached by a familiar name, or at least names more familiar than most of the actual all-stars.

Team Chuck, Team Shaq, Team Kenny and Team Candace will do their best to score 40 points in order to be allowed to play on. At the end of the day, one group will be proclaimed Mini-King of Hoops or something. I assume a trophy is involved.

All all-star games are stunts, of course, not “celebrations of culture,” as sponsors would have it. The best of these things still remains the baseball affair. It is no more significant, but the actual game is played the way actual baseball games are played, even if the recent uniform homogenization dulls things.

The rest are so much waltz and giggle, awards shows without tuxedos, though you never know what someone might wear to the slam dunk contest.

They have to do with preening and posing and showing off; not showing off for the fans or for the event, which would be somewhat forgivable, but for the most dreary of male motives, showing off for each other. (This is the explanation promised anon.)

All-star games have come to encourage a kind of peacock flash and flaunt, or to use the official judging criteria, “artistic ability, imagination, body flow and fan response,” reducing real games to figure skating.

The question of who has the hardest shot in hockey or who can dribble quickest around traffic cones might seduce sport books to weigh in, but I would not bet on it.

The trouble with these “skills competitions,” and every all-star game has them, is that they admit that the sport itself is too dull to keep the attention of an audience. The emphasis gets twisted, away from the game to the circus, where posturing against phantoms draws greater hoots and hollers than real competition.

Here in the heart of the all-star season, with all of these exhibitions of football, hockey and basketball staged so near to each other, maybe one solution is to do them all at the same time, in the same place, have NBA players try to dribble on ice, or hockey players try to just jump, never mind slam dunk, in the bulky laundry hockey players wear and football players try to hit a three-pointer wearing skates.

It wouldn’t be any more meaningless nor absurd than it is now.