H-O-R-S-E

TNT announced today that in addition to the Slam-Dunk Contest, the 3 Point Shootout and the Rookie/Sophomore game that H-O-R-S-E will be part of the NBA All-Star weekend activities. While I have high hopes for this activity despite not much able to watch it due to me not having a TV, I think that in the end it will disappoint. There are a couple reasons for this. First, I have questions about how well H-O-R-S-E will translate onto television. Will one of the participants turn it into a free throw shooting contest? Somehow I doubt that it will turn into Michael Jordan and Larry Bird playing for a Big Mac.

(as an aside: We all know that Jordan is hyper competitive. This competitiveness was the source of his gambling. That said, aren't the terms of the bet he makes with Larry really stupid? If he wins the bet he gets to eat his own sandwich in front of Larry, which he was fixing to do before Larry offered to play for it. Shouldn't Jordan have upped the stakes a little and made Larry give up something? Perhaps that is why Jordan has lost so much money from gambling because he doesn't know a good bet from a poor bet.)

Second, and this is perhaps the biggest challenge of all, the fans would like to see players like Kobe and LeBron play H-O-R-S-E, but they probably aren't the best H-O-R-S-E players on their own team. Larry Bird wasn't the best at H-O-R-S-E on the early 90's Celtics teams, Michael Smith and his 5 points per game was. While the most entertaining matchups might include players like Kevin Love or Eddie House, that isn't going to really drive fan interest to watch.