Live From Vegas: Disappointing Shooting Stars Competition

The Shooting Stars competition has the potential to be one of the night's most exciting events, but this year's version had some things working against it.

The Legends that were participating this year pretty much all sucked. Except for Scottie Pippen, who has been training for a comeback, the old-timers were especially bad this year. Michael Cooper was a brick machine, and that's when he was actually hitting the rim. From half court he was mostly chucking air balls. Bill Laimbeer and George Gervin weren't quite as bad, but they weren't helping either. I'm sure there are some former greats that can still shoot a little out there, hopefully the NBA will dig some up for next year.

The teams in the event have a time limit of two minutes to complete all six shots, but the clock kept stopping at 1:00, which meant a lot of instant replay to determine the actual times. This totally killed the momentum and took the air out of the crowd a bit. The Chicago team's final effort was pretty exciting, with Pippen nailing the half court shot to seemingly win it. But more instant replay ended up disqualifying Chicago and giving the title to Detroit.

Detroit's famous home court announcer Mason was calling the festivities last night, and was very reserved for the most part. But when Chauncey hit the half court shot, he couldn't help himself, and screamed "Mr. Big Shot! Chauncey B-B-B-Billups!" That was cool.

Check the video below of Pippen's half court shot from where I was sitting, and let's hope next year's event goes a little more smoothly.