The festivities began early for Utah Jazz fans, with the hometown trio of Collin Sexton, Walker Kessler and Jordan Clarkson securing the Skills Challenge trophy in the first event of All-Star Saturday night.
In the second edition of the revamped Skills Challenge, three teams of three took the court in Salt Lake City for a series of challenges, testing players' shooting, passing and ball-handling.
There were three different challenges as part of the event: The team relay, the team passing challenge and the team shooting challenge, comprising the first round. Utah's trio took home the win after their victories in the team passing and shooting challenges.
Here were the full teams that took part in the event:
Team Antetokounmpo: Thanasis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks), Alex Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Herd; G League), Jrue Holiday (Milwaukee Bucks; injury replacement/temporary Antetokounmpo)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) was initially slated to particpate, but opted to step aside due to a wrist injury.
Team Rooks: Paolo Banchero (Orlando Magic), Jabari Smith Jr. (Houston Rockets), Jaden Ivey (Detroit Pistons)
Team Jazz: Walker Kessler, Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson
The rookies took the lead after the first challenge, the team relay, with some nimble footwork from Ivey and solid scoring from Smith Jr. Team Antetokounmpo made a solid run but were penalized after the youngest Alex bypassed some of the obstacles (clearly didn't study the tape from the challenge last season and Josh Giddey's miscue).
The passing challenge was next, which came with a surprising glitch. One of the moving targets broke and was unable to move from side to side, leaving players to instead throw a bounce pass through the target. Team Jazz snagged the win there with rookie big man Kessler putting in a Jokic-esque performance, scoring 40 points with some impressive bounce passing.
In the last part of the event, the shooting challenge, Team Jazz secured their second win of the night, and the gold medal, off the back of a Scottie-Barnes-redeeming performance courtesy of this year's crop of rookies, almost laying a goose egg in the challenge.
