For 40 minutes Sunday, NBA fans were forced to sit through what can be described only as a tone-deaf circus.
I’m not talking about the weekend’s main-event All-Star Game, which was, surprisingly, more entertaining than expected. I’m talking about everything before that.
If viewers tuned in to TNT between 8 and 8:40 p.m. Eastern time, before the game actually started, they probably assumed that they had stumbled upon a low-budget awards show. There was no indication that this was a celebration of the NBA’s most elite players, much less anything that had to do with basketball.
Philadelphia’s own Kevin Hart led the show, which included pre-recorded skits, cameos by Adam Devine and Rob Riggle, and performances by Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah, and Ludacris.