NBA All-Star Saturday night best bets

All-Star Saturday night is a fun event. The NBA All-Star game truly brings the best in the game together and the night before the game is all about entertainment. The activities on the floor are interesting and watching basketball royalty in the stands makes it a special evening. 

The Slam-Dunk competition is what garners the most YouTube hits afterwards but my favorite is the 3-point shooting competition. I also like the way they have changed up the Skills Challenge this season with the teams. It probably is a little less meaningful but perhaps more fun at the same time. 

Wagering on any of these things is certainly pretty whimsical but what else are you going this Saturday night. Lets see if we can find an edge or two. 

Skills Challenge

• Team Rooks +160 (Cade Cunningham, Scotti Barnes and Josh Giddey)
• Team Cavs +170 (Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen)
• Team Antetokounmpos +190 (Giannis, Thanasis, Alex)

Before we dive into this you should have some sense of what this is - it is a combination of shooting, passing and dribbling.

I love the Team Antetokuonmpo thing but that bet feels like a throw away. Obviously Giannis is super skilled, but it it is hard to imagine that either of his brothers would be in the league if there was not a thing about the name on the back of their jerseys. 

Looking at the other teams I like the Rooks group best. Cunningham, Barnes and Giddey have multifaceted games and have been showing them all season long. The Cavs team is limited by the addition of Allen, a player hardly known for his skill. The difference between the prices is not worth it at all. 

Take the Favorite. 

3-Point Shooting Competition

• Patty Mills +500
• Luke Kennard +550
• Fred VanVleet +550
• Zach LaVine +450
• Trae Young +450
• Desmond Bane +600
• CJ McCollum +650
• Karl-Anthony Towns +950

There are a couple of quick things to note with this field. For starters, the last seven winners of this event are all still in the NBA but absent from this group, including Steph Curry, who won his second title last season. 

The other is that no player over 6'10" has ever won. Karl-Anthony Towns is a quality shooter but he would be the first (and I am just not seeing it).

The rest of the field is very interesting but the guy I am zeroing in on is Des Bane. He has quickly become one of the best outside shooters in the NBA. Playing with the Grizzlies he has yet to be tested in big time playoff games but I like his athleticism and form to serve him well in this spot. At +600 he is a really good value.

The other guy to like is Luke Kennard. He is in the middle of his best shooting season in the NBA and he has an easy release that is repeatable in this format where you are making unguarded. +550 is never a bad bet for 30 minutes work either.

My heart is with Fred VanVleet but I wonder how he is going to do with his high arcing shot. He is also best when a 7-footer is running out at him. 

Take Bane and Kennard.  The values are such if one of them wins you still make a profit.

Slam-Dunk Competition

• Jalen Green +135
• Obi Toppin +170
• Cole Anthony +325
• Juan Toscano-Anderson +475

Picking a Slam-Dunk champ from this group comes down to the top two players on this list for me.

Green used his elite athleticism to sneak into the top of this year draft and even though he has a long way to go to be a player that is valuable in real games, you can see what the fuss was about when the he is in the air with the ball. He has the right size so that the things he does are still interesting to watch. The question is how creative can he be. 

Toppin has not done much on the court in New York. The Knicks are a mess and his underperformance has not helped matters at all. He can fly though and it feels like an event like this could be a coming out party. With no local flavour to this contest perhaps the crowd grabs on to the NYC kid.

I would take Toppin for just a little better value.