NBA All-Star Weekend was a pure indication of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of professional basketball.

The weekend kicked off with the Rookie vs. Sophomore game featuring Wally Szczerbiak’s flame-throwing act of 11-of-13 shooting from the field, and culminated with the East team overcoming all naysayers with Allen Iverson leading them to victory in a 111-110 thriller.

But let’s start off with The Ugly of this two-day circus.

In the Dunk Contest, His Airness himself was in attendance to watch the action. In fact, CEO Jordan was overheard saying that this was “the worst dunk contest ever!” What would prompt Jordan to voice such harsh words?

Perhaps it was Baron Davis, who made a mockery of the entire contest.

The 6-foot-3 Charlotte Hornett guard was eliminated from contention in the semifinals of the dunk contest. But it wasn’t just the fact that he was removed from the competition. Davis completely missed his final dunk attempt, but if the miss wasn’t bad enough, the fact that he tried to do it with a headband over his eyes that had a hidden peak-hole inserted in it was what made it downright insulting.

Now you can understand MJ’s grievances. Oh, yeah, Seattle’s 6-foot-7 rookie Desmond Mason won that contest. Yawn. Yawn.

The Bad.

Did players like the decrepitly old Vlade Divac deserve to be in the game? How about the bad boy Anthony Mason?

In his first All-Star game appearance in his career, we now see why this was Vlade’s inaugural and, we hope, only showing. After all, Vlade gets up and down the court just about as quickly as the blindingly fast lines at the ATM machine in the Student Center.

As for Mason, if Dennis Rodman never made an All-Star game with all that he has accomplished in the league (two back-to-back titles with the Pistons and three with the Bulls) then Mas shouldn’t have been allowed to show his face, either. End of story.

The Good.

Yes, there is still some good in the NBA outside of all the money-hungry, cry-baby, prima donnas in the league.

Allen Iverson has learned to say all the right things for once. He started off the season releasing a controversial rap album that served up a one-on-one meeting with the Commissioner David Stern, but now he is echoing all the statements that would make Mr. Stern one proud Commish. During his half-time interview on NBC he was asked if his inspired play was to get a shot at the MVP, but Iverson simply said, “I’m just here trying to win the game.”

The answer put on a display that overshadowed all during the All-Star game. On one play in the first half, Iverson caught a pass while falling out of bounds on his team’s baseline, then switched hands with the ball and with enough body control in mid-air he stroked in the basket with such a soft touch that it barely touched the rim. A la Larry Bird.

Iverson went on to score 15 of his 25 points in the final nine minutes of the game, while Stephon Marbury nailed two 3-pointers in the final 53 seconds as the East came back from what looked like it would be an ugly blowout with the West’s lead as large as 21 points. The game was a fitting performance of the 50th anniversary of the contest.

“It was like a championship game out there,” Dikembe Mutombo told NBA.com. “I’ve been in the All-Star Game the last seven years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Iverson said after the game, according to NBA.com, “Everybody was saying we couldn’t win because of our size. It’s not about size. It’s about the size of your heart.”

After the game Stern told Iverson “[great basketball players] can be wrapped, if you pardon the expression, in very small packages.”

Professional sports are on their way out

I remember when I was a kid my dad told me great stories about Ernie Banks, Minnie Minoso and the Chicago baseball teams of the 1960s. He always said that baseball and life were a lot simpler in those days and that athletes weren’t paid much more than the rest of the population. He and my grandfather could go to a baseball or football game for a little more than a day’s wage, and have a great bonding experience.

Enter the world of modern day athletics — more specifically professional baseball. During the 2001 off-season, professional baseball has seen its salary base skyrocket into levels that once seemed unattainable. The average major leaguer is now pulling in an astounding $1.8 million a year, almost 18 percent higher than in 1999.

The biggest shocker came in December when the Texas Rangers agreed to pay former Seattle Mariners shortstop Alex Rodriguez $252 million over 10 years. For those of you who are way too dependent on your TI-81s, that is about $25 million a season. This is for a guy who throws a ball and hits it with a wooden club. Sounds a little ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Let’s compare these salaries with those of the people who are actually productive members of our society. Firefighters, civil servants who risk their lives every day for the sake of mankind, make an average of $38,168 a year. The average licensed nurse makes an average of $35,724 a year to help save lives.

What nobody seems to realize is that this could be the beginning of the end for professional sports. The larger market teams are eventually going to swallow the small market teams whole.

It’s kind of like a Safeway moving into your town and forcing your friendly grocer out of business. A small market team like the Kansas City Royals will never be able to sign high caliber players like a big market organization, such as the New York Yankees. The current payroll for the Royals is $534,460, while America’s team gives out a whopping $3.6 million a season. How can the Royals, Oakland Athletics or Montreal Expos pull in enough money to pay top-of-the-line athletes when they can’t even come close to the revenue of the Yankees or Atlanta Braves.

This means that if these big-name athletes continue to demand quarter-billion dollar salaries, the small market teams will eventually fold and baseball itself will crumble. Professional franchises are in a race to see who can suck the most green out of the fans’ pockets, with whoever gets to the finish line first surviving. It is like Darwin’s survival of the fittest theory. Only the strongest will survive in a dog-eat-dog situation. The big dogs — New York, Chicago, Atlanta — will eat up the puppies — KC, Montreal, Oakland — and there won’t be any dogs left to play with.

So how do we prevent this madness from continuing? It is a really tough task, but it begins with you and me. Next time you want to spend $30 to get into the ball park and $4.75 for a Miller Lite, cherish the fact that as a result of your splurging, future generations may never witness professional sports as we know them. We need to tell the owners and the athletes that they are playing a kids’ game, and they are exploiting our society for all we are worth. Although watching a man throw a football 75 yards, or hit a baseball 500 feet is amazing, they are still mortal men playing a GAME.

Many parents can’t even take their kids to a baseball game anymore because the prices are way too high. How can a dedicated parent reasonably spend a quarter of their weekly wages by taking their family to watch men play games? This is not easy for the average family to do.

So what is my message through all of this? It’s basically to enjoy professional athletics while you can. Soon, they too will crumble like the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall. It would truly be a shame for my kids to be unable to hear about the Kirby Puckett and Ryne Sandberg of my youth.David Grossman