The Skills Challenge was first held during NBA All-Star Weekend in 2003. It's a competition for agile players with the ball. First, the competitor must make a lay-up; Then, he has to dribble between three obstacles. The usual rules of dribbling must be respected. At the end of the obstacles, the player must make a throw that must not touch the hoop, followed by a throw into a second basket that must also not touch the hoop.
After these shots, the player makes a shot 6 meters from the basket. Then the player has to make a long throw into a third basket. Finally, the player must dribble between three obstacles and complete the event with a lay-up.
It is after all these tasks are performed victoriously that the stopwatch stops. After the first round, the two fastest players face each other in the final.
Domantas Sabonis first won his duel against Julius Randle in the first quarterfinal. Nikola Vucevic won the second quarterfinal against Robert Covington. The two big men will then win their semi-finals. They were facing All-Stars Chris Paul and Luka Doncic. Sabonic defeated Doncic, and Vucevic walked away with the win over Chris Paul.
Four editions will be in a row if a big man wins the trophy. Vucevic won it in 2019, Al Horford in 2018 and Bam Adebayo in 2020. And the winner of this 2021 edition will be Domantas Sabonis.
The Skills Challenge version 2021 offered us a 100% Old Continent final between Domantas Sabonis and Nikola Vucevic, won by the Lithuanian who, after failing at the last stage last year, finally took his revenge to win his first Skills Challenge.
Sabonis won his first Skills Challenge after failing last year's final against Bam Adebayo—a tight final since the two big men did everything perfectly before blocking from behind the 3-point line. Sabonis and Vucevic missed their first three tries before the Pacer tucked in their fourth without giving the pivot time to fight back.
Then the Three-point contest.
Competitors try to score as many points as possible in one minute. Five racks of balls are lined up all around the 3-point arc: one on each side along the touchline, one on each side between the head of the arc and the touchline, and one at the head of the arc. There are also two 3-point balls located before and after the front rack.
In the first round, each competitor has a chance to score as many points as possible., Each rack has five balls, four of which count as one point (the classic orange balls) and the fifth (a blue, white, and red ball, nicknamed the "money ball") is worth two points. The perfect score is, therefore, 30 points. The three players with the highest score qualify for the final.
There are things you can't escape, and Stephen Curry, who puts in three-pointers, is one of them. The 2015 and 2016 MVP won his second 3-point contest after 2015, and this time, we can't say he wasn't clutch. Indeed, facing a Mike Conley in super-left-handed mode, the Chef had to work to the end to win his second crown. 27 points in the finals for Conley and Curry, who missed his first three shots... we began to believe that the Jazz point guard would achieve the ultimate heist. Still, the three-time NBA champion returned his two Mountain Dew Shots worth 3 points each before making 4/5 on his money rack, where each ball is worth two points. But Conley is still in front at the last rack, and after making 3/4 of the first four shots, the score is 27-26, Conley, with a Moneyball left to shoot.
All of Utah has held its breath, but as said earlier, there are things you can't escape, and unless you have Kevin Love in front of him, Curry and three-pointers rhyme with automatic, and the Chief will, without trembling, return his Moneyball to give him the victory on his very last shot.
A most pleasant contest as in recent years, which often raises the level of the All-Star Weekend. Stephen Curry had also written history in the first round by achieving 31 points, a new NBA record even if it remains to be put into perspective since with the introduction of the money rack and the Mountain Dew shot, but it had to be done.
Then comes the halftime of the All-Star Game, and it's time for Hector to put on a show... Or not.