Welcome back to another episode of Smallball with Kenny Beach,

I feel so good to be back.

We had to run a rerun, a rerun last week, because around this time, seven days ago,

I was in my basement, grown-ass man, in the fetal position with the flu, the super flu.

I'm going to call it the super flu. I had the flu a few times in my life. Nothing beats whatever's going on right now. I had every symptom you could imagine. I had vomiting. I had chills. I had a fever. A 104 fever, which I didn't know this, but 104 could get pretty dangerous if it's sustained for a long time. So I was sitting down there and, you know, I hate to not have an episode prepared for y'all, but it was just no way.

The only thing that I'm still dealing with seven days later, sometimes my voice can crack a little

bit. Sometimes I might have to get off screen and cough a little bit. But other than that,

your boy is back. And man, I missed a lot, didn't I?

Seven days without talking hoops feels like an eternity to me. We are in the dog days, which is

like if there's any time to miss an episode or to get sick, it's like kind of right now,

because you're not learning anything new halfway through the season. But boy, I missed it.

Before we get into the episode, I'll let you know that me and the boys have a live show in Los Angeles for All-Star Weekend. I'll be sure if you're watching on YouTube that the link will be in the description or you can scan the QR code that will be on screen. We have a great show planned. If everything goes perfectly special guests, I don't want to make no promises, but special guests, some names that we have, we have fillers out for. They're like, yeah, they're interested. So if you're in the Los Angeles area around All-Star, please come show us some love. And also later today, as we get this episode out, it is MLK Day. And y'all know MLK Day is for, you know, remembering Marlon Luther King, Jr., all he did for America, but also is a day for basketball. So be sure to tune into Peacock and NBC to see a huge, huge slate of basically hoops starting as soon as you wake up. I mean, this episode premieres, I think, at 11 o'clock central time, and I'm looking at the schedule. As soon as this episode is

done, you can just switch channels. You got Bucks versus Hawks. Come on, man. Feels weird that we won't have Grizzlies playing on MLK Day for what? Like the third or fourth year in a row? But they're in Berlin hooping and they're doing their own little thing. But yeah, be sure to tune in to hoops because hoops is great. All right. What am I doing today? Today we're going to be talking about NBA All-Stars. Yes, it will be also announced. There it is here on Peacock and NBC, the starters of the NBA All-Star game for the 2026 game. But I'm going to give my own personal ballot. First up, I'm going to let you know that my ballot literally means nothing. I'm just a

guy to watch basketball. I don't have an official vote to anything yet. I'm just a guy to

watch a lot of basketball. I like to give my opinion. So here are my preambles when it comes to

this NBA All-Star stuff. Personally, I'm not one of the people that vote with the idea of the game in mind. There was a period of time in my life as a guy that was covering this sport where I would read articles and listen to podcasts, who also didn't have official votes but also just watches of basketball like me. And they would have somebody off of their ballot because, well, their style of play is not very fun. And the All-Star game is supposed to be about fun. I say that's BS. It's not about fun. It's never been about fun. Well, I can't say never. I think the last time I had fun in the All-Star game was Cleveland, where Steph Curry hit a gazillion threes. I remember that being in attendance.

And before that, it was like 2020 right after Kobe's passing and right before the world

shut down. Those are the last times I had fun during an All-Star game. I look at it the same way

I look at All-N-B-A. The All-Star game is a snapshot of the league given honors to the best 24 players in basketball.

Sometimes it end up being the best 24 because the Easter conference is trash.

But I look at it that way.

And it is a way we look back on players' career, man.

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