re: NBA All-Star game, what the hell happened to men's basketball?

I watched about 10 minutes of that clip. This clip doesn't support your point in the least bit.

While they weren't playing with the intensity of a full regular season game. They were most definitely putting forth a lot more effort than the all-star games of today.

They aren't running any sort of offense, and the guys in general are having fun, but you can tell they are actually competing out there. Dikembe and Mutombo alone played more defense and blocked more shots than the entire 2024 game. And that was just in 10 minutes.

All-Star game should be NBA vs. WNBA, then the men's players would actually try to win

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the regular season is basically a 3-point shooting contest (shite, maybe Bird should come out of retirement, bad back and all, he could drop dimes on these lazy defenders slash entertainers defense.

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Larry would have to get up and down the court first. He's not doing that at 67 lol.
But on a serious note with the way the game is played today, Bird would be the perfect player to dominate today. He was a 40% shooter only taking 2-3 3's a game. He would be taking a minimum of 7-8 3's a game now if he played.

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Even when the Joker won the title he said, "I'm just glad its over...now I can get back to my horses.". Meaning, he was tired of " performing ".

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No fool, that just means that basketball is not the only thing he enjoys doing in life.

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trying to entertain for a few hours, with no care about outcomes.

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You wanna know how I know you didn't watch any of the playoffs?

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The players are more rational and intelligent today and are focused on avoiding injuries/wear to save themselves for real games.

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Players are more entitled and coddled, and focused only on prolonging a career to increase their wealth. Often when real games come, they struggle to turn it on because they haven’t been consistently rev’ing the engine and it stalls.

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I miss the old days

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I miss the even older days. The crossover of eras is tremendous here. Dr J representing the ABA/NBA merger and the 70's and the birth of the game going above the rim, Bird, the other Celtics' and Moses with the halcion days of the early to mid 80's, Thomas and Lambier the thug, lockdown defense era of the late 80's, and of course Jordan and the dynasty of the 90's. Hell, you even have Michael Ray Richardson, who was on his way to a hall of fame career before becoming the poster child for the drug addled early '80s.

By far, the biggest distinction between these eras and those of today is the post player. Players like Parrish and Malone would be an afterthought. It is strange to say, but a player like Lambier would likely thrive today as he was by far the best shooting center in the league at the time.

And an NBA where Bill Lambier is more valuable than Moses Malone is why we have threads like this 2-3 times a week.