OPEN THREAD: 2007 NBA All-Star Weekend- All-Star Saturday

Building on the wild highlight reel that was the Rook-Soph game (Ellis to the Rim!!), the 2007 NBA All-Star Weekend continues with the usual Saturday night lineup.

All Skills, All Treys, All Dunks.

Here's the schedule for today's goodies:

• 2pm-4:30pm PST: D-League All-Star Game [NBATV]
• 6pm-8pm PST: NBA All-Star Saturday Night- Shooting Stars, Skills Challenge, Three-Point Shootout, Slam Dunk Contest [TNT]

D-League All-Star Game
Even the junkiest of NBA junkies are probably not going to watch this game. Warriors junkies however will be paying close attention to this game. Why? Because chances are one of the ballas in development will be sporting Warriors threads in the near future (see Barnes, Matt and Azubuike, Kelenna).

Check out the rosters:

East
Alan Anderson
Will Conroy
BJ Elder
Stephen Graham
Quemont Greer
Renaldo Major
Pops Mensah-Bonsu
Luke Schenscher
Clay Tucker
Loren Woods

West
Elton Brown
Brian Chase
Randy Livingston
Kevinn Pinkney
Peter John Ramos
Rick Rickert
Dijon Thompson
Von Wafer
Jawad Williams

Going over these rosters two things hit you:

• These cats got some funky names. Kelenna must've fit right in with them.
• Hey we know two of those guys! Make sure to root for Warriors-for-a-quick-sec Renaldo Major and Dijon Thompson.

Predictions:

• Pooh drops it like it's hot.
• Pops goes old skool.
• The announcers have a blast saying all these names.
• Elton Brown looks like Elton Brand.
• West by 5.

Shooting Stars
Whew! Let's just pretend this event never happens. It's boring like the San Antonio Snores. Actually guess who won it last year? Yup, the Snores.

Predictions:

• The best part about this event is going to be when they cut to commercials.
• 60% of the people watching at home fall asleep.

Skills Challenge
This is one of those classic competitions that's actually more fun to actually try at home with your buddies than watch. Still, it should be fun with this cast of characters. It's kind of funny how the biggest names are actually in this practice drill-like event and not in the flashy dunk contest. Check out this year's participants:

• Dwyane Wade
• Kobe Bryant
• LeBron James
• Chris Paul

Predictions:

• LeBron James finishes in last place because he misses his jumpers.
• Like I said in The NBA Round Table for About.com earlier this week- Dwyane Wade will win the honors because he gets ALL the calls.

Three-Point Shootout
Wouldn't it be fun if Marvelous Albert was the TV host for this event? We could hear "From DOWN-TOWN!" all night long. Here's this year's 3pt assassins:

• Dirk Nowitzki
• Gilbert Arenas
• Damon Jones
• Jason Kapono
• Mike Miller
• Jason Terry

When Arenas was going nuts with the Warriors back in the day I honestly never thought he'd develop turn into one of the league's deadliest 3pt shooters. I never thought he was going to morph in Agent Zero either. Looks like I'm a fool.

Predictions:

• Jason Kapono requests a few Warrior "defenders" to guard him while he's shooting 3's to improve his accuracy.
• Hibachi rains game as Arenas becomes the first Washington Warrior to win the shootout.

Slam Dunk Contest
This year's dunk contest has a decent mix of participants. Defending champ Nate Robinson returns to battle Dwight Howard, Tyrus Thomas, and Gerald Green.

Something tells me that regardless of what crazy stunts these fellas do tonight, they'll still have nothing on this...

Or this...

Predictions:

• Nate Robinson pulls of a spectacular, death-defying, stunning dunk that we've never seen before- on the 17th try.
• Dwight Howard does some nice stuff, but finishes in last place because this ain't a big man's competition (see Kemp, Shawn and Stoudemire, Amare).
• Tyrus Thomas gets some boos.
• Gerald Green wins with some nasty leaner-type dunk.
• We hear Kenny Smith say 26 times during the event "The Dunk Contest is back!" just like we do every year.

Make sure to give us your predictions in the comments for the Saturday festivities for the 2007 NBA All-Star Weekend and post any comments you have during the events right here.