Closer Look

All-Star Saturday sorely needed LeBron's star power

By Marty Burns, SI.com

LeBron James didn't make an appearance in the slam dunk contest as many expected. AP

LOS ANGELES -- Paging LeBron James. Paging LeBron James.

The NBA sure could have used the Cavs' rookie phenom on Saturday night. For the Slam Dunk Contest. For the 3-point shootout.

Or how about just for an early ride home in his Hummer?

Instead James was just a courtside spectator, one of thousands who left the Staples Center disappointed after a lackluster All-Star Saturday night.

Fred Jones and Voshon Lenard were the winners of the Slam Dunk Contest and Three-Point Shootout, respectively. Jones is a seldom-used Pacers reserve. Lenard is a journeyman currently toiling for the Nuggets.

Oh well, it can't always be perfect for David Stern. Sometimes fate -- or a slippery basketball -- wrecks the Hollywood ending. Literally.

Thanks to a bad case of butterfingers, Warriors guard Jason Richardson blew his chance to win Saturday's main event and earn an unprecedented third straight Slam Dunk crown. Needing just a 41 on his final dunk, Richardson lost control of the ball as he was going up for a tricky catch-and-spin attempt. Since he had already replaced an earlier dunk, he was done for the night.

Jones, a 6-foot-4 guard from Oregon, was the winner by default.

"It was a new ball, and it was slippery," Richardson said. "I couldn't get a handle on it.

"But Freddie did a great job, and he won it."

Why Richardson was attempting a needlessly difficult jam is anybody's guess. All he had to do was ram home any old kind of dunk and he would have beaten Jones. But that's typical these days for the Slam Dunk. Nobody seems to know the rules or what the judges use as criteria.

The 3-Point Shootout had no such mystery. Lenard took the event by racking up an 18 in the final round and putting the pressure on two-time defending champ Kings forward Peja Stojakovic. After falling behind, Stojakovic drained his last four shots but missed his final money ball to lose out on his bid to join Larry Bird and Craig Hodges as the only three-time winners of the event.

"I wasn't feeling any pressure," Stojakovic said afterward. "Everybody was talking about the three-peat. It would have been nice, but it didn't happen."

Richardson admitted afterward that this year's dunk contest was a disappointment and that the event overall "had lost its luster." He also said he had made up his mind, win or lose, not to compete next year. "It's kind of hard coming up with new dunks," he explained.

If it was Richardson's final event, he at least went home knowing that he'd produced the best dunk of the night. His off-the-glass, between-the-legs, tomahawk brought the Staples crowd on its feet. It also earned a 50 from the judges.

Jones, however, finished with two perfect scores of his own. His best dunk came in the final round when he bounced the ball high in the air, reached way back to catch with his right hand and tomahawked it home. Like Richardson's attempt, the Staples crowd went wild.

"That's right where I wanted it," Jones said. "I wanted it as far away as possible so I could extend all the way and then give it a little more flair."

Jones also had a memorable effort in which a friend in the crowd fired him a pass under the basket, and Jones tried to catch it on the bounce above the basket and drive it home.

But as Jones was going up for the ball with two hands, he failed to get a grip on it. The ball slipped and somehow bounced through the rim. Since the ball went through the net, the judges had to count it.

It was that kind of night for the Slam Dunk Contest, and for the NBA. If only LeBron had decided to compete. Next year the NBA is going to need him more than ever.