NEW YORK (AP) – Imagine Kobe Bryant, late in his final All-Star Game, going basket for basket with LeBron James, fans in Toronto on their feet as the NBA’s best put on a show.
Suddenly, nowhere near the action, a Western Conference player wraps his arms around Detroit’s Andre Drummond for an intentional foul.
OK, that’s farfetched. Nobody has ever been accused of overthinking defensive strategy in the All-Star Game.
But Hack-a-Shaq critics worry that it is going to be used in an important game with a big crowd watching – and eventually those fans won’t want to watch anymore.
“Somebody is going to do this in a nationally televised game. There’s going to be two bad free throw shooters and we’re going to see guys, like, grabbing people 80 feet away from the basket,” ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy said recently.