Our good friend Zach Harper from Talkhoops.net joins the show, at 4am eastern time, to talk about the All-Star Weekend in the NBA. But first…

Nick and I talk about the Olympics coverage thus far. First, we put on our Al Roker costumes (yes, I totally wish I had an Al Roker costume) to discuss the weather in Vancouver and how it’s really starting to screw with the quality of the events. But then, our ire is shifted toward NBC. How in the world can a media company spend more than $800 million and not show all the events when they happen? And how in the world do they think that we’d rather see a human interest story by Mary Carillo — who I like, by the way — interviewing Polar Bears more than 1,000 miles away from Vancouver. Just because it’s “CANADA” doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the Games going on in VANCOUVER.

And that’s the least of NBC’s worries. How about the lack of coverage during the day, leaving all the events that do well in the ratings for prime time, even though the events are actually taking place in the middle of the day. So now the social media among us have to avoid Twitter or the internet all day to be surprised to know that Bode Miller won a bronze medal in the downhill. Great. And that becomes even more difficult when NBC TWEETS THE INFORMATION OUT THEMSELVES, thereby undercutting their own coverage. I know it’s only 60k people or so, and the people on Twitter will likely find out the outcome anyway, but isn’t that more reason to just stream the video online? Or put it on one of your 20 different networks? How is there not a skiing network and a skating network and a luge/bobsled/skeleton network and a hockey network? They did that for the Summer Games with basketball and soccer? Is this THAT hard for NBC to figure out?

Court Report:

Zach Harper talks with me about the NBA All-Star weekend. We first spend a lot of time on the dunk contest. Have we fallen out of love with the dunk, or are the guys in the contest just not creative enough? Should the NBA have teams sign the And1 crew to 10-day contracts before the All-Star break so we can get some good dunkers in the contest? And would that even matter to people who only want to see Kobe and LeBron, et al, in the contest?

Someone, eventually, will do a three-point dunk. Until then, the dunkers will have to do something more creative, or the format will have to change. Zach and I discuss the idea of combining the HORSE and Dunk contests into a dunk-only HORSE game (yes, like that new McDonald’s commercial). Isn’t that the best of all worlds?

We also discuss the game, the lasting feeling for the NBA community coming out of the weekend and I get his thoughts on TNT’s conversation about the labor issues during the All-Star game coverage. Oh, and could we have a 2011 without any major professional sports?

Court Report (College Edition):

Nick and I talk about the insane week in the BIG EAST and throw some crazy scenarios out there for who can make the NCAA tournament.

Housekeeping:

We literally do some housekeeping with site news. Plus, the AFL is back, and Nick’s rats are not.

Thanks for listening, and for your patience with the site move.

Tags: All-Star, Big East, NBA, NBC, Olympics, Talk Hoops, Zach Harper