This Friday, the NBA All-Star Weekend festivities will make their landing in Houston. These three days provide the perfect segueway from the Super Bowl into March Madness, only cementing the NBA’s status as king of the court/field/rink/velodrome when it comes to all-star events in American pro sports. The NHL? It seems like there’s a midseason classic only every other year at this point. The MLS? A game where the league all-stars play against a top English squad is a cool idea in theory, but fits the exact definition of a friendly when it comes to effort and performance. The Pro Bowl? I would put one of many clips of players failing to even try to tackle a runner here, but the NFL has wisely purged the Internet of any such footage. The NBA’s finest regular-season hour has an innate coolness to it, in comparison to other sports and in its own right. 

First off, the stands of an NBA game possess more “I’m a celebrity; look at me” kind of moments than any of the other major American sports. Unless you’re A-Rod being fed popcorn by a starlet, there’s no easier way to get on national television than and plopping down in a courtside seat, decked out in your shiniest jewelry and trendiest jacket. Just ask these guys. 

Baseball has its fair share of supermodel girlfriends in the crowd, but the type of talent differs in trendiness. The MLB All-Star Game last summer had Luke Bryan and American Idol winner Phillip Phillips perform, while 2011’s NBA equivalent featured Kanye West, Rihanna and Drake (we’ll forget about 2012 and Nicki Minaj). The difference in vibe represents the massive cultural divide between the two sports, with the former targeting Middle America and the latter targeting the urban demographic and suburban teenagers (guilty as charged on the latter). The NBA, for better or worse, has no shame in promoting itself as flashy and trendy. Plus, who doesn’t want to see Usain Bolt fly by Common or Ne-Yo for another windmill slam? 

Part of what completes the package of the whole event is its timing. The NBA is inherently a winter sport. The NBA Finals stretch into June, but the season is unofficially inaugurated with what has become a Christmas Day quintuple-header. For the next two months, fans across the Northeast and Midwest bundle up and brave their way to their respective and warm downtown arenas, a stark contrast from the frigid outdoor stadia of the NFL. A late January slugfest between the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks might not fill the stands ($1.95 though!), but the NBA remains a constant fixture night in and night out in the dark days of winter. 

Each sport brings a different attitude. Summer is the perfect atmosphere to set up your recliner on the back porch, sip on lemonade or an ice-cold beer, and watch Josh Hamilton or David Ortiz mash balls across state lines. But in the winter, we’re not relaxing. We’re making it through. Life is a grind, and we want to be excited. The MLB All-Star Game brings the same-old shtick year in and year out, but the NBA’s offerings offer an unrivaled “wow” factor. 

The biggest source of “wow” is of course, the dunk contest. The NBA fan base loves watching the one percent of the one percent of elite athletes on the planet sky through the air to put a basketball (or two) into a net. Part of it is the trickiness factor. Part of it is the incredible athleticism on display. Most of all, it’s the awe-inspiring image of watching a man seemingly fly through thin air as time stops around him before jolting back to reality in a split-second as the sheer force of the ball forces it through the thin net at lightning speed. The way the ball ends up on the hoop has to be unique, but the sequence is tried and true.  

In baseball’s Home Run Derby, one uses a bat to hit a ball an abnormal distance. In basketball, you use the basketball as a paintbrush and paint your dunk in a unique manner (or you lose for unoriginality). Dunking is not as exciting for other objects, like crumpled paper or donuts, but for basketball it fits to a T. The dunk contest is just a formalization of what millions of children grew up doing on six-foot hoops in their driveways, and that gives it a significantly wider audience than the Skills Challenge or Celebrity All-Star Game. 

In 2011, viewership for the dunk contest averaged 8.1 million viewers, and peaked at 10 million people the moment Blake Griffin decided to be nimble and quick and jump over a car. Last year’s viewership was down, probably due to putting the event on the same night as some spectacle known as the Academy Awards. But as James White and Jeremy Evans (a combined 12.2 minutes per game this season) can tell you, one Saturday night can turn you from any old benchwarmer into a highlight reel legend for years to come. 

As for the All-Star game, intense defensive effort might be as common as a Steve Nash dunk, but there’s still an air of competitiveness despite the game having no actual impact. Just ask Kobe Bryant, who had his nose bloodied last February by Dwyane Wade, yet stayed in despite combating sickness to play in the first place, all in order to break the All-Star game career scoring record. Part of that is Bryant’s startling competiveness, but the on-court intensity mixed perfectly with the right dosage of spectacular slams and pinpoint passes makes for a annual game where one can turn on the television at any moment and find entertainment value. 

The Three-Point Contest and Skills Competition are the George Harrison and Ringo Starr of the weekend’s events (The Shooting Stars Competition? Pete Best), but the main two are difficult to live up to. Still, the NBA knows how to adjust its marquee event. Instead of making it count towards the title matchup like how the MLB All-Star Game affects home field in the World Series, the NBA knows when to hold and when to fold its cards. The trial event that was the “H.O.R.S.E.” competition turned out to be a miserable failure, and the league put the kibosh on it after two years. The same goes for adjusting the Rookie-Sophomore game, where the teams are now selected playground-style and team captains take turns choosing their teams. The ratings and fan opinion speak, and the NBA listens. How revolutionary. 

When it comes to midseason classics, it’s ultimately up to one’s personal preferences to go ahead and pick their poison. The NBA All-Star Weekend is not the game at its peak, but nevertheless displays the flashiness, star power, and immense levels of pure talent and athleticism that has fueled the league's renaissance in the past five years. I don’t expect 99 percent of those reading this column to watch every moment of this weekend, but I highly advise you to sit down, take a glance, and see a couple dozen of the world’s finest athletes at their peak. You might be entertained.

Reach Associate Sports Editor Jacob Freedman here or follow him on Twitter.