Thanks to the drama of NBA players being selected through the new live-draft feature or getting their feelings hurt over being snubbed, this week’s NBA All-Star weekend was surprisingly entertaining.

Saturday night’s All-Star contests were unusual in that this year, Stephen Curry failed to win the three-point contest for the 100th time. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but as an avid follower of the NBA, it feels strange to see any player from the Golden State Warriors lose anything at this point.

Surprisingly, Nets forward Joe Harris pulled away with the Three-Point Contest. As for the Dunk Contest, Thunder guard Hamidou Diallo took home the trophy. Despite most people not knowing who Diallo is, everyone knows what Vince Carter’s elbow hang dunk looks like. Copying the dunk while jumping over Shaq and flexing a superman shirt worked out quite well for Diallo.

The Skills Challenge was won by Celtics forward Jayson Tatum. Since we’re on the topic of the Saturday night events, I think it’s important to mention the NBA needs to add an All-Star one-on-one competition to the list of Saturday night events.

One-on-one games are talked about all the time by NBA players and yet we as NBA fans never get to see them happen. This would be the perfect add on to what’s already a fantastic weekend event. I cannot imagine anyone who wouldn’t want to watch LeBron James and Kevin Durant go head-to-head.

At the start of Sunday night’s All-Star game, it appeared to be just as boring as other All-Star games from the past years since no one wants to play defense. However, with the new game style in which team captains get to pick the players, the competitiveness in the game was actually exciting and refreshing.

The first half made it seem like Team Giannis was going to dominate since they scored over 50 by half time and were leading by 20 points. However, at the end of the third quarter, Team LeBron came alive.

The game suddenly turned into a combination of the dunk contest and deeper three-point contest. On the last five minutes of the game, the defense came alive and although there was more defense than  any past All-Star games the final score was 178-164 with Team LeBron pulling off the win with a 20 point comeback in the second half with Durant taking home his second MVP trophy.

This year’s All-Star game showed how the NBA is different other American professional sports leagues. The NBA is run by the players, they have the freedom to pick their own teams.

From watching Giannis Antetokounpo jump 10 feet for an alley-oop from Curry to seeing James play alongside Dwayne Wade for one last time, the new All-Star format allows for interconference dynamic has made the NBA All-Star game the most fun to watch in recent memory.

Even Dirk Nowitzki was able to drain a few threes before hobbling after the court before being honored with Wade for their final All-Star game before retirement.