I attended the 2024 All-Star game last weekend from Feb. 16-19 in Indianapolis, Indiana. I have to say that I had a fun experience there – Indianapolis is only three hours east of Springfield, and is not an extremely overpopulated city either. This was my first time visiting Indianapolis, and I enjoyed myself as soon as I got there. I stayed at the Baymont Hotel, just 23 miles south of downtown Indianapolis. The only bad thing was that it did snow on Friday, and I missed the “Celebrity and Rising Star” games because of the weather delay.
On Saturday, I got up early to see the NBA All-Stars practice at Gainbridge Fieldhouse Arena. As I was walking to the arena from the parking garage where I parked my car, I saw a lot of signs all over the street, and I even saw a bunch of giveaways there. I saw people play pick-up games outside and saw advertisements of different NBA players displayed outside the building. I even visited the NBA store, which had tight security. Most of the merchandise was expensive. For instance, the NBA cap and beanie, together, cost me over $100.
I eventually made my way through the NBA store and took the stairs to see the game. When I was finally able to make it to the seats in the stadium, the first person I saw shooting around was Kevin Durant. I was filled with joy as I decided to sit down and post pictures through my Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. While snapping photos, I eventually noticed other players playing, including Stephen Curry, Karl Anthony Towns, Nikola Jokic, Luka Donics, Anthony Davis, Anthony Edwards and Devin Booker, who all showed up together since they were part of the West team. It was cool when Stephen Curry volunteered to throw a few t-shirts at the fans, and it looked like he was enjoying doing so, too. For the East team, there were Damian Lillard, Trae Young, Julius Randle, Jalen Brunson, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton.
The only thing the NBA fans were disappointed in that day was that they couldn’t see Lebron James or Giannis Antetokounmpo, but instead, they just decided to wait to see them in the NBA All-Stars on Sunday night. Later, there was an event outside of Gainbridge Arena, where if you hit three shots in a row, you could win some free Nike shoes that anybody could take home for free. Everyone, including myself, tried to win the contest multiple times, but only a few won it – the rest of us weren’t so lucky – but just for being at the event, we were offered a free bag to take home and even free food. Later that night, I attempted to see the Saturday Night All-Stars event at Lucas Oil Stadium, but something went wrong with my ticket when trying to pull it off my phone, so I had to return to the hotel I was staying in.
The next day, on Sunday, I I woke up ready for the All-Star game that evening. I went there around 7 p.m. and made it just in time to watch it in person. I had to return to Bainbridge Fieldhouse arena, and since I wasn’t in too much of a mood to drive, I decided to take an Uber to see the game. Everyone in the arena, including myself, could see that Lebron and Giannis were at the game performing with all the other superstars previously mentioned earlier at the practice event. It was great that they went back to the East vs. West format instead of having a captain picking which players they want on their team as if they were in a pickup game.
The game wasn’t too bad, but just like the other fans that watched it, we wished they would have put more effort into defense because scoring over 206 points for most people shouldn’t have happened. After the game, everyone in the crowd was disappointed that Damian Lillard won the All-Star MVP over Tyrese Haliburton. The reason why the crowd was disappointed was not just the fact that Haliburton was, in fact, not only playing for the Indiana Pacers but also that this was their hometown.
After the game, I eventually saw Jalen Rose taking his VIP fans to some special event, and it was very cool to see him interacting with his fans even though he is retired from the NBA.
The NBA All-Star MVP Damian Lillard signed autographs for the fans while heading back to the locker room, which was very wholesome. I also saw four TNT spokespersons, Shaquille Oneal, Kenny Smith, Ernie Johnson, and Jamal Crawford, all hosting the All-Star, and we fans could witness them up close and personally. My trip to see the NBA All-Star was mostly fun except for missing out on the Celebrity, Rising Star, and Saturday Night Event. In the future, I will do this again if only they come back to the Midwest to do the All-Stars again, whether in Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit – or even Memphis. Who knows, maybe if they are in Vegas, I’ll fly there to watch it. But overall, I enjoyed going to the 2024 NBA All-Star game and was happy to be at the event.