Highlights of NBA All-Star Weekend

By: CandyMan

Last weekend was one of the better weekends for the NBA All-Star weekend in recent history. Every event was fun, engaging & competitive. The weekend started with the celebrity game where Kevin Hart won his 4^th straight MVP. There were more deserving candidates though, as his East team lost to the West 57-51. Mo’ne Davis probably had the play of the night after driving down the lane with Hart in her face and hitting him with a spin move that opened up an easy layup for her. Next, there was a new format in the Rising Stars Challenge. Freshmen & sophomores from the USA & international countries would compete against each other. The World team beat the U.S. 121-112 as Andrew Wiggins (from Canada) scored 22 points and won MVP. Victor Oladipo & Zach Lavine were the leading scorers for team USA with 22 points each.

Saturday night started off with the first ever fashion show in which JR Smith, who just got traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, finished in first place. The Shooting Stars competition got off to a fast start with all 4 teams finishing und^rd straight Shooting Stars win. Next up was the Skills Challenge with a new tournament format where 8 players competed against each other 2 by 2 side by side. Patrick Beverly won the event after struggling with the chest pass in the last 2 rounds, but came from behind & hit his first 3 point shots with ease against Jeff Teague in the semifinals and Brandon Knight in the final round. 

er a minute. But only 2 could advance into the second round, Team Westbrook (Russell Westbrook, Penny Hardaway, Tamika Catchings) & Team Bosh (Chris Bosh, Dominique Wilkins, Swin Cash). Team Westbrook couldn’t make their half-court shot after using up the whole minute & thirty seconds. Team Bosh came out on top after a half-court shot from Wilkins with just under a minute. It was their 3

The 3-point contest itself was an All-Star roster and ended up meeting expectations as one of the best 3-points competitions ever. The roster included James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kyle Korver, Wesley Matthews, Marco Belinelli (last year’s winner) & JJ Redick. Matthews scored 22 points in the 1^st round but it still wasn’t enough to get into the 2^nd round as Curry, Thompson & Irving all scored more. Curry finished with the title after scoring 27 points and hitting 13 straight shots at one point. Many consider Curry to be the best 3 point shooter in the game and he solidified that status with this win. The final event of the night was the dunk contest. Everybody knew Zach Lavine was going to win and he did just that. He had two perfect score dunks in the first round that brought the whole crowd on their feet. Honestly, they were his best dunks of the night and there was no competition. The Greek Freak was hyped up coming into the event but failed to finish a dunk which basically knocked him out. Victor Oladipo had an impressive first dunk and advanced to the 2^nd round but couldn’t keep up with Lavine.

Now on to the main event on Sunday night. A few stars missed the game due to injury including Kobe Bryant, Anthony Davis & Blake Griffin (all starters for the West). DeMarcus Cousins & Damian Lillard got to play in the game at last, after being snubbed when the initial roster was announced. It was the usual All-Star game: fast-paced, little defense, plenty of turnovers, many 3-pointers and a lot of highlight plays. The West’s stacked roster beat the East 163-158. Westbrook was very explosive from the start and scored 41 points for the West and won MVP. LeBron James scored 30 points for the East and finished 2 points shy of tying Kobe for most career points in an All-Star game. The West is 4-1 against the East in the last 5 All-Star games.

Carol City Football was Everything: The Dynasty that Never Happened

By:Jimbo Brown 

It's the 1st day of summer practice at Miami Carol City High School and your a freshman trying to find your way on a talented JV roster. The year is 2005 and I was that freshman in high school who didn't know nothing about Carol City football besides they won state a few years earlier. If it wasn't for my mom I would have been at Miami Northwestern. Schools outside of Carol City was the landing spots for most of its talent from 2005-2012. Due to the old school mentality of legendary coach Walt Frazier and the dictatorship of his predecessor Harold Barnswell,  the football program at CC hasn't returned back to their once elite status. 

From the class of 2009 and up Carol City has seen talent come in and out of the school and having success in other programs. NFL stars such as Kayvon Webster and Stedman Bailey both were freshmans with me. Webster who later became a dual threat for Pace was tricked into helping the team by being stuck in a position he didn't want to play. This lead to him transferring to neighborhood rival Miami Norland. Norland that year and helping them end our 6-year streak of undefeated seasons. Stedman on the other stayed at CC until the end of his incredible sophomore year. He left to join Geno Smith at Miramar High School, a school that inherited a lot of the talent from Carol City. The youth had a bad stigma about CC that made them run away and find homes elsewhere.

If I told you guys that we had Teddy Bridgewater for a hot minute, would y'all believe me? Yeah he was practicing but because of an executive decision from moms he headed to Northwestern where he became arguably the greatest quarterback in their history. That happened a lot with the talent at Carol City. Either the off-season workout was too much for them, the philosophy was to demanding or other schools was a better destination. A big part of the problem was that Carol City wasn't putting their players in college. Even the talented ones who stayed was looked over because the coaches didn't do their jobs. 

For the pass decade Carol City football program has been in the middle of the pack. How potent of an offense we would have had with Teddy at QB with Sted and Allen at receiver. Or think about how many shutouts we would have had with Kayvon and Robert Sands on our defense. Class of 2009 had the best chance to make some noise but was oust from the playoffs by one of the luckiest catches in football history. Carol City is heading back in the right direction. With the help of the flakey business with Miramar head coach. Talent will be returning back to its home and hopefully we can get back to a national powerhouse. Chief Pride! 

Rams Silent Protest

By: Candy Man

This past Sunday during the St. Louis Rams & Oakland Raiders game, five Rams players (Stedman Bailey, Tavon Austin, Kenny Britt, Jared Cook & Chris Givens) walked out the tunnel during pregame introductions with their hands up in support of Michael Brown. People all over the nation have protested with the phrase “hands up, don’t shoot” after witnesses claimed Michael Brown had his hands up when he was shot & killed. Despite that, the cop that murdered Brown wasn’t indicted by a grand jury. The decision not to indict him led to more protests around the nation & riots in Ferguson.

Not only did the Rams players show their support, fans of the team have also been vocal. There was another protest during a Monday Night game against the 49ers where fans protested with chants & signs and their hands up. The five players made a silent but major statement through a simple gesture. African-American athletes in general have been criticized for not taking a stand and speaking up on certain events that have affected the Black community so this was encouraging and shows that they are actually paying attention. Athletes are subject to harsh criticism, fines, suspensions and threats to their brand & image if they say or do the wrong things under the eyes of the media. I respect them for taking a stand and a sacrifice that other athletes won’t take. There are many instances in sports where athletes took a stand on issues in our society such as the Miami Heat posing in hoodies in support of Trayvon Martin, the black power salute in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics when Tommie Smith & John Carlos raised their fists in a silent protest against racism in America, and Muhammad Ali’s refusal to be drafted to fight in the Vietnam War in the 1960’s.

Despite their courageous act, there have been organizations that opposed the Rams protest and want the NFL to punish the players such as the St. Louis Police Officers Association and a local bar that decided to boycott the NFL and are no longer serving happy hour during Rams games. The NFL recently came out publicly with a statement saying the Rams players won’t be fined. The country is divided on the grand jury decision and there are many people and organizations that are still pushing for an indictment of the officer and felt that that the grand jury process was unfair.

I applaud Bailey, Austin, Cook, Britt & Givens for their demonstration and hope to see more athletes be more vocal about issues that affect them and their communities. As role models and popular public figures, they have the influence and spotlight to have an impact and enforce change with their actions and opinions.     

Just Hit the Bookies

By: Candy Man 

​Every weekend on social media, you see people post theirtickets that made them hundreds of dollars off parlays or cost them hundreds just off of one team. Floyd Mayweather regularly posts tickets on Instagram of him winning millions. Sports gambling has become big business in this country & all over the world and there are many outlets to feed this business. From Vegas to Atlantic City, people go to the books or casinos to put in their tickets. Online gambling sites have become ever more popular lately. People tune in every week to the Vegas books to see the spreads and odds of every game in every sport. Even popular fantasy sites like FanDuel, which pays out about $10 million every week in cash prizes & just locked up a deal with the NBA, are participating with daily fantasy games. Wagers are placed on anything from who will score first in a certain game to youth sports on athletes as young as 6.

​As a whole, about $400 billion is wagered illegally in the U.S. every year. Sports gambling is still illegal in most of the country except Nevada, Oregon, Montana, & Delaware. Despite that, major sports figures such as NBA commissioner Adam Silver and NBA owner Mark Cuban have come out in public to back the legalization of betting in sports. Even media outlets such as ESPN have recently come out with an entire section dedicated to money lines, point spreads, & over/unders on their website and t.v. coverage.

​I, along with many of my peers, gamble on sports. It gets you more invested in the games while giving you an opportunity to make some extra money at the same time. I think America is changing their mindset when it comes to this topic and you’ll see more states legalize sports gambling in the future. The major concern is that it will creep into the sports itself and start affecting the games in a negative manner. Controversial scandals like Pete Rose in baseball, Tim Donaghy in the NBA, and Boston College men’s basketball, which inspired an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, have illustrated this point. But with strict regulations and safety measures, the federal and state governments can guard against that.

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