Brook Lopez led Team Lopez in Comic Book Trivia the “Shooting Stars Competitions” as part of NBA All-Star Saturday in Houston. The Shooting Stars Competition teams a current NBA player, a WNBA player and a retired NBA player in a time based competition in which the participants have to make shots from six different posts of increasing difficulty in sequential order. Shot one is a 10 foot bank shot from the right angle, shot two is a 15-foot bank shot from the left angle, shot three is a straight on NBA three, shot four is an 18-foot right baseline jumper, shot five is a three pointer from the left angle and shot six is a half-court shot.
In a bit of added comedy for an already funny evening (Fall Out Boy?), the seven-foot Lopez was teamed with 5’3″ Muggsy Bogues, a 14 year NBA veteran and the smallest man to ever play in the NBA. Tamika Catchings, the 6’1″ Indiana Fever forward and 2011 WNBA MVP, joined the odd couple to round out Team Lopez.
In a new format to raise money for charity, the East and West were split up into teams, with each conference receiving points for winning the four events (Shooting Stars, Skills Challenge, Three Point, Dunk Contest). In the Shooting Stars, two East teams (Bosh, Lopez) were pitted against two West teams (Harden, Westbrook), with the best first round time from the East meeting the best first round time for the West in the finals. The winning team in the finals received 10 points for their conference. In addition, the conference with the lowest combined time for the first round received 20 points.
Team Lopez went in the final spot of the first round after Team Harden (37.9 seconds), Team Westbrook (29.5 seconds), and Team Bosh (50 seconds). Lopez swished his first attempts from both the first and third stations, but his teammates weren’t as efficient. Bogues took several attempts from his stations, garnering jokes from the TNT announcers such as Reggie Miller’s quip, “Can he even get it up to the rim from the three -point line?”
Team Lopez, needing to complete the round in under 50 seconds to reach the finals against Team Westbrook, headed into the final station with about 23 seconds elapsed. It took seven rounds of the trio hoisting it up, but Brook finally nailed the shot — in perfect jumper form — to finish with a team time of 1:07; good enough for last of the four teams, and only .4 seconds faster than the West’s aggregate time.
Team Bosh defeated Team Westbrook in the finals with a time of 1:29 to salvage 10 points for the East. For the evening, the Western Conference defeated the Eastern Conference by a score of 140 to 125. The event raised over $5550,00 for charity, with the benefiting organizations chosen by Chris Paul (Western Conference Captain), Dwayne Wade (Eastern Conference Captain), the NBA and State Farm, the sponsor of NBA Saturday Night.
