LEGO Sports: NBA Ultimate Arena

LEGO Sports: NBA Ultimate Arena

You may never have the raw basketball ability to keep up with NBA All-Stars Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson, or Tracy McGrady. Unless, as in this amusing LEGO set, each of those guys are just a couple inches high and attach easily to plastic pegs. Besides Shaq, AI, and T-Mac, other players included are Kobe Bryant, Jason Kidd, Antoine Walker, Steve Nash, Kevin Garnett, and a particularly weird-looking Dirk Nowitzki. The arena can be built with the assistance of a detailed instruction booklet and resembles a slightly flattened-out Velodrome. The neatest feature in this 481-piece set is a little round basketball that players can pick up between their hands and actually shoot by leaning back at their spring-loaded waists. Admittedly, it makes for an unorthodox shooting style, but that's never hurt players like Shaq in the past. Everything is compatible with other LEGO sets, which creates opportunity for interesting transference: let Antoine Walker mix it up with pirates, send Steve Nash into space. The choices are limited only by your imagination. --Charlie Williams