Michael Jordan, aka - "The Russian Judge"

Tonight, I watched a very entertaining All-Star Saturday Night, which included the highly anticipated Barkley/Bavetta race, which I will get to in a moment. But first... seriously, did Dwight Howard get robbed or what? Hey Mike, ain't nobody ever gonna be like you if you keep stickin them with 8's when they clearly deserve a 10. The dunk that Howard pulled off was very, extremely original (which is usually the most important criteria), but unfortunately the judges weren't as impressed as the rest of us. I'm still curious to know what the sticker said, and I guarentee that will be the most talked about dunk out of the whole contest. I do think it was smart for MJ (and the Doc) to be tough, as he stated during the interview with Cheryl Miller, but sometimes you gotta give credit where credit was due. I think if Howard goes with a power dunk there in the 2nd round, and saves that dunk for the final - he gets a 50 with that dunk. That inconsistancy with scoring is why these guys deserve to be tonight's awful officials.

Now... as for Bavetta. I am disappointed that Dick lost, but proud of the old man. However, I think I am more disappointed with Dick and how he handled himself with the mic and camera in his face. He is obviously not used to that. He appeared to be intimidated by Sir Charles, and I think he may have let that get inside his head a little. He was afraid to have fun with the event, took it too seriously in my opinion. Even after the race when Ernie (who was awesome by the way) asked Dickie B about the race, his simple, boring, unentertaining, uninspiring answer was "67 and 44". I never saw one smile from the man, all business, which is I guess what you want from your officials anyway. But - I thought he could have lighted up just a tad - maybe there's some humor hidden in there somewhere. But anyway, thanks Dick for the effort you put forth tonight, it was very entertaining and I enjoyed it very much. I will admit, I found myself standing for the race, as I really could not believe that I was getting ready to watch it.

All in all, it was a good night I guess. The announcing crew could have used a little help, but I'm sure AA was all over that while live-blog'n the whole shabang. Speaking of announcing, where has Marv Albert been? I believe he was absent from TNT's thursday night coverage, and I didn't see him tonight either. Let's just hope he didn't get caught taking pictures with his cell phone.