Live From Vegas: The Skills Challenge Is Harder Than It Looks

Alternate title: God did not want me to attend the All-Star Practice. I had bought my ticket for the practice from someone on the East coast, who shipped it on time for delivery yesterday. But due to "adverse weather conditions," my package was stuck in Louisville, KY so unfortunately I didn't get to attend. I did however check out the Jam Session, and took my shot at the Skills Challenge that Kobe, D.Wade, Lebron, and Chris Paul will be competing in this evening.

My plan for this was to take it easy and not do anything to embarrass myself. I'm a decent pickup basketball player, so dribbling around some stuff and throwing passes through a hoop looked like a cake walk. Plus I was wearing jeans (with basketball shoes) and am coming off a recent knee injury, so I was basically going to jog through the course and try to make the passes and shots on the first attempt. Sounds simple right?

The first shot is a layup, which I made no problem. After that was the dribbling around the NBA logo statues, again clear sailing. Then we come to the chest pass, which I was apparently a little over-confident with. I stepped into the pass, put a lot of zip on it, and started to run to the next station assuming I made it through the hoop. The problem was, I was slightly high with the pass, so it ricocheted and came back strong and nailed me in the forehead. Yeah, a little embarrassing, but the crowd got a good laugh out of it. The bounce pass was tough too, and I failed on all four of my attempts. The free throw I hit on my first try, but by then I was just trying to get out alive. I finished with an atrocious. time of 41.9.

So let's remember when watching tonight's events that these guys are the best in the world at what they do. Some of us (meaning me) should just heed the age old advice of, "Do NOT Try This At Home."