So who else watched the NBA All-Star game last night? In case you missed it, the West defeated the East 155-145 in 2OT, after the East spent entirely too much time trying to get Jordan the last shot. In fact, I’ll go ahead and incur the wrath of Bulls fans the world over (a solid percentage of whom I’m sure are now avidly following the Lakers, since they’re the winning team these days) by saying the level of MJ-jocking last night was ridiculously excessive. It’d be one thing if the league hadn’t already said its goodbyes before the Wizards return last year. And it’d be another if this is the usual protocol for sending off long-time hardfloor warriors (Stockton, Malone, Olajuwon, and Ewing all come to mind.) But it seemed as if even Jordan got sick of all the kudos being sent his way by the end of the night. To say nothing of the fact that the East blew the game because Jordan had to take every game-deciding shot rather than T-Mac or AI. Look, I’ll be the first to admit that MJ was a history-making athlete, one whose only peers may be Babe Ruth and Muhammad Ali. But this will be his third retirement. Can we please stop treating him like the pope? Update: David Aldridge concurs.