Dunk is a dunk, of course, of course -- for real fun, I'll watch H-O-R-S-E

A priest, a rabbi and a dwarf walk into a room. And what happens next? Somebody dunks over them, of course, because that's not a joke waiting for a punch line. It's a dunk waiting for Dwight Howard to do it.

Tell me when it happens, because I won't be watching. I can't watch another contrived dunk. Not Dwight Howard in a cape. Not Cedric Ceballos in a blindfold. Not Dee Brown's pump dunk. Not Candace Parker's dunk. Not any dunk, not if it's scripted and made for TV.

So Nate Robinson is short? And he can dunk, you say? OK, we get it now. (Getty Images)

Once entertaining, the NBA's slam dunk contest has been marginalized by the mostly mediocre players still willing to do it and ruined by the stupid stunts they've pulled to stay relevant. Howard wears a cape, and people think that's cool? That's not cool. That's idiotic. So is anything done by Nate Robinson. You feisty little knucklehead.

But this weekend, this NBA All-Star weekend, there is a reason to watch the festivities. The reason is so good, so retro-fresh, that I will forgive the NBA for its mercenary marketing ploy and watch it anyway.

I'll watch three NBA players in a game of H-O-R-S-E.

Even if they insist on calling it G-E-I-C-O.

Some marketing whiz thought of that: Let's sell the name of the game to a corporate sponsor. One with five letters! I'll forgive the marketing whiz. I'll even forgive NBA commissioner David Stern for listening to the marketing whiz. Money's tight. You take your cash where you can get it. If Viagra offered me a few bucks to hang its sign on one of my drooping branches -- I'm talking trees, people -- I'd do it. Money matters.

And H-O-R-S-E is cool. It might not be cool for long -- once upon a time, the slam dunk contest was one of the coolest things in sports -- but while it lasts it will be cool for the exact opposite reason the dunk contest was once cool:

We can all play H-O-R-S-E. Well, we can try.

Can we dunk? No. Not most of us. We can't even try. We'd look as silly as Tracy McGrady earlier this week when he went in for a breakaway dunk against Milwaukee, tried a two-handed reverse and embarrassed himself. McGrady had no chance to make that dunk. I'm not sure he was even high enough to grab the rim. He looked pathetic, which is how most of us would look if we tried to dunk.

But that's what was cool, at first, about the dunk contest. Look at those guys doing things we can't do!

When it started, dunking wasn't as prevalent in the NBA as it is now. And fancy dunking, unless it was Dr. J, wasn't done at all. Not when the slam dunk contest got going again in 1984. That's why the dunk contest was such a good idea -- we had a good idea these guys could fly through the air and do silly stuff with the ball, but we needed the dunk contest to see it with our own eyes.

But 25 years later, we've seen it. And seen it. And seen it. And now players are doing 360-degree dunks and alley-oop-to-myself dunks and double-pumping reverse dunks, and they're doing them in the game. So the slam dunk contest had to find new territory, and that territory has been Dork-ville.

Honestly -- Dee Brown pumps up his Reeboks, buries his face in the crook of his arm and dunks? Good grief. But that was the winning dunk in 1991. When Ceballos won in 1992 by tying a blindfold around his head, I was done. This was no longer about dunks. It was about dorks.

But H-O-R-S-E ... I can get into H-O-R-S-E.

Poll Who will win the All-Star H-O-R-S-E game? 34% Kevin Durant   41% Joe Johnson   25% O.J. Mayo   Total Votes: 4677

Show me trick shots. In any sport. I can't watch pool, but I can watch video of a guy knocking 15 balls into the same hole in 10 seconds. I can't watch bowling, but I can watch Mark Roth pick up the first televised 7-10 split in history.

So maybe I'm the dork.

But I can't watch whatever goofy dunking trick Nate Robinson has up his sleeve this weekend. As if being 5-7 isn't enough. But it's not. Spud Webb has been there, dunked that, so being small is no longer enough. But being small and dunking over a llama -- that's entertainment.

You watch it. I can't. But I can watch whatever bizarre shots are concocted by Joe Johnson, Kevin Durant and O.J. Mayo. Those are the players involved Saturday night in the game of the H-O-R-S-E, and I'll watch it. Bounce a ball off your head and shoulders and name it the "Dandruff Shot." Call glass from 30 feet. George Gervin and Pistol Pete Maravich played H-O-R-S-E in the 1970s and I was in love.

Trick your shot, and I'll watch for hours. One of the best parts of the 2008 NCAA tournament was the show UCLA's Kevin Love put on before each game, when he'd throw in chest passes from half-court, then the opposite foul line, then the opposite baseline.

Next year, Kevin Love needs to play H-O-R-S-E. Or G-E-I-C-O. For his first attempt, maybe he can make a shot after bouncing a chest pass off the caveman's face.