2015 All-Star Practice Hennessy Suite Recap

It took an entire week to recover.

That’s how good the Hennessy Suite for the 2015 NBA All-Star practice was at Madison Square Garden early Saturday morning, back on February 14.

Let’s just put aside the free-flowing spirits for a second and talk about the exquisite cuisine that was on hand for brunch.

S’mores waffles? Wow. And yes, they were as tasty as they sound. Then there was the egg omelet with lobster. I saved my appetite for the event and believe me, I’m glad I did.

Now back to the liquor. There was as much Hennessy Privilege VSOP Cognac as you could drink and there was a master mixologist on hand to make specialty cocktails.

Maybe I had one or two or three drinks, who’s counting?

Good food, top shelf drinks and basketball? You could kill me then, because it doesn’t get any better than that.

As for the practice sessions, it was just as you’d expect, with a few layup drills and dry runs.

The West squad’s coach Steve Kerr made things interesting, asking the crowd to count out made jump shots as players like Chris Paul, Tim Duncan and Stephen Curry attempted to sink 30 shots to get to the next drill.

Steph Curry With The Shot and John Wall went head-to-head in a crazy “Game Changer” H-O-R-S-E contest sponsored by Degree, but they both missed way too many shots. Wall came out with the W.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oe47gKBXEY

What was fun to see was the HR Block contest. Two fans were vying for $2,800 in cold hard cash. Why $2,800, you ask? Well, according to the IRS, that was the average income tax refund amount last year.

One guy could either pass the opportunity to make a three-point shot to his opponent or take it himself. If he passed and the guy made it, he was SOL. If he took the shot and missed them all, he was SOL.

One brave soul took it upon himself to take the shots for the cash. With seconds on the clock, this guy, who had on a heavy sweater, took confident shot after shot and then, with less than 3 seconds left, squared up and nailed a triple. All of us in the suite couldn’t believe the guy’s cooler-than-the-other-side-of-the-pillow gamesmanship. His swag was on a hundred thousand trillion.

As the early morning events came to a close, I may have had another drink or four before heading back out into the freezing New York City air to attend the next thing on my list.

Good thing I was taking the subway and not driving.