AP Photo/Matt York

With the announcement of this years Foot Locker 3-Point Contest contestants I began thinking about players who I would like to see in the contest. The actual lineup of: Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Durant, Daniel Gibson, James Jones, and Dorell Wright is basically a must-watch as it is, but still there have got to be some other guys people would love to see in this competition. For example I’d love to see JJ Redick out there, as well as guys like Chris Paul and Steve Nash. Then I thought, the NBA is always trying to make improvements to it’s All-Star Weekend, so how about a 3-point contest for big men who never shoot threes?

Throw The Big Conductor, Dwight Howard, Blake Griffin, Darko Milicic, Andrew Bogut, and DeAndre Jordan (just so we can have the same sort of teammate rivalry as Allen and Pierce) out there and who wouldn’t watch? Just the hilarity of the situation would make it must-see TV. Then better yet, mic up Shaq and let him commentate throughout the whole contest. Listening to Shaq heckle his fellow big-men while they shoot would be epic.

Now this does not mean that the NBA would have to bag the regular 3-point contest, because watching pure shooters go at one another is exhilarating to watch, instead this new 3-point contest would just be an addition to the weekend. To go along the contest the NBA could get a comical sponsor, like Mini Cooper. So now you have the contestants mentioned above duking it out for a brand new Mini Cooper. While the contest is going on the only song that can be played throughout the stadium is Big Things Poppin’ by T.I.

Wouldn’t you love to watch 7-footers run around the 3-point arc just trying to get off every shot within the time limit? The potential for ridiculous air balls would add to the excitement of the contest. The six big men I mentioned have made a combined 9 3-pointers in their careers. So the contest should almost always come down to the wire.

So looking at that statistic above, from Basketball-Reference, it seems that Blake Griffin would be the odds on favorite to win the competition, but it would be hard to actually believe in any one player. Given 25 shots though I don’t think that Shaq, Dwight, Bogut and the rest would only make one. My hunch is that these guys can all at least have a decent chance to make a couple threes, granted the players I chose barely have mid-range games, especially Dwight, DeAndre and Shaq. Regardless of whether or not shots are made, each time a shot goes up you would be enticed to watch it, just incase it actually does go in.

I’m sure we would all love to hear announcers predict this contest. Who knows, maybe one of these guys goes off and posts a number that could challenge the regular 3-point competition shooters. It would certainly give the media something to talk about the next day. If a player like Darko were to rain threes though it could potentially lead to a disaster for the rest of his season. This contest has the potential to fill players with a false sense of shooting ability, so would teams even want their players to be involved with this? I have no doubt in my mind that the players themselves would love to participate in this contest. Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t like to jack up tre’s while shooting around? So it would really come down to the coaches, and if they would even give their player a chance to participate. For the sake of entertainment I certainly would hope that the coaches would let ‘em shoot.

It all comes down to this. One rack left, Shaquille O’Neal needs one to tie Darko Milicic, and two to win. Boom. The entire atmosphere of the stadium would be simply awesome. Kobe, LeBron, D-Wade and the rest of the guys sitting court-side laughing hysterically. Announcers not knowing whether to be serious or not. Every time someone hits a shot the entire crowd erupts. The hype surrounding this contest would be off the charts. I am getting giddy just thinking about this idea.

Commissioner Stern, please make it happen.

This is Matt’s first post for Stacheketball, in addition to Stacheketball he runs Momentum Three. If he is not crying about the state of his Wizards he will gladly like to hear from you on Twitter @Matthouston91