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Chris Paul And Victor Wembanyama Were Immediately Disqualified For Blatantly Trying To Cheat In The Skills Competition

Luke Hales. Getty Images.

Every year, all you hear about is how the NBA All Star Weekend is dead. Just this season we've seen the league try all these new ideas to make the weekend interesting, including another yearly tradition of begging the players to care in the Sunday finale. I'm not sure anyone will ever truly care about the Celebrity Game that takes place on Friday, which means Saturday night's events are usually when people start paying attention. 

One competition I've personally never really been all that interested in is the Skills Challenge. I'd rather have the Shooting Stars competition if we're being honest, and at this point the Skills Challenge is the appetizer for the 3PT Contest and the Slam Dunk Contest. Most years, it's the least entertaining event of the weekend and feels mostly like a formality than anything any fan truly wants to watch or gives a shit about.

That is of course unless there's a blatant attempt at cheating/manipulating the rules. I don't think we've ever had a situation where a duo tried to manipulate the system during the Skills competition to get the quickest score possible, but then again we've never had Wemby/Chris Paul partake in the festivities

This is the most Chris Paul thing maybe of all time. Of course, if there's someone who is going to try some shady shit to gain an advantage, Chris Paul is involved. And to make matters worse, he's dragging Wemby into it! So much was made about how CP3 was going to be a mentor for Wemby, well what type of example does this set? On one hand,d I respect the grift. Everything they did was I guess in line with the rules, but it ruins the entire integrity of the event. That's a dick move if I've ever seen, and good on the fans in attendance for booing the shit out of them. We're all just here to have a good time and see some cool shit, no need to try and cheat your way to the top, especially when both CP3 and Wemby are insanely skilled! 

This competition should have been such a cakewalk for the Spurs that they shouldn't have needed to resort to such blatant manipulation. You just know Adam Silver is losing his shit watching all that unfold too. Every five seconds he has to answer to why his league doesn't take All Star Weekend seriously and then boom.  Right at the start of their big Saturday Night you have one of the greatest point guards ever and the next great NBA superstar and international sensation pulling a stunt like that. That's a tough pill to swallow. Hilarious to think about, but a tough spot for Silver unfortunately.

And hey, at least this provided some sort of juice to an otherwise nothing burger of an event. All publicity is good publicity right? So maybe in some ways, CP3 and Wemby did the NBA a favor?