All-Star weekend diary: Skinny jeans, dumb questions, NBA "legends" and more

There comes a moment in every sports journalist’s run when he does something so irrecoverably stupid, he wonders whether his career will ever again be a career.

This is happening to me.

In slow motion.

It’s Sunday, roughly 12:30 in the afternoon. I am walking through the west wing of a ballroom in the Los Angeles Convention Center, having just spent 2½ hours eating eggs, drinking coffee and sitting alongside Danny Schayes, four of Danny Schayes’ closest friends and an unidentifiable man with a pronounced lisp, a salmon-esque body odor and a propensity for spitting bacon shards as he chews. This is the NBA’s annual All-Star Legends Brunch, and while I am neither legend nor all-star, I was able to snag a coveted ticket.

Which means I’ve been chatting up a storm. With Dale Davis and Jerome Williams. With P.J. Brown and Cedric Ceballos. With Jason Collins and the man who smells of salmon.

And now—again, in slow motion—I am directed toward Anthony Avent, the former Seton Hall star and NBA legend. In an odd twist of odd fate, I desperately need to speak to Avent for a book project that’s been burdening my soul, and being told he’s standing 20 feet to the left makes my heart skip. Before approaching, I actually ask the bacon spitter (who has attended many of these brunches) twice to confirm that it is, indeed, the Anthony Avent. To which he says, “Oh, yeah, that’s definitely Anthony Avent.”

It is all I need to hear.

Anthony is standing alongside a young boy when I approach. I tap his shoulder and say, “Anthony, how’s it going? I’m Jeff Pearlman.”

He looks at me. Not disgusted. Not angered. Not happy. Just a blank look.

“I’m Theo Ratliff,” he says.

Awkward silence.

The most awkward silence ever.

Like

Think

The

Most

Awkward

Silence

You’ve

Ever

Experienced

And

Triple

“Oh, I say.”

More silence.

“Oh.”

I hate All-Star Weekend.

===

That sounds weird, doesn’t it? “I hate All-Star Weekend.” Makes no sense. All-Star Weekend? All-Star Weekend! Three days of ballers, of music, of fun? You’re a dentist, a lawyer, a sanitation worker, an elementary school teacher. You hear a writer moan about the NBA’s three-day All-Star Weekend and think, “Save us your tears.”

I get it.

That said, here’s a little secret: Among veteran journalists of all genders, races and experiences, All-Star Weekends (of any major sport) are just above hemorrhoids and just below scabies on the THINGS I NEVER AGAIN NEED TO EXPERIENCE list. And the 2018 NBA All-Star Weekend—live from Los Angeles—is, to be blunt, a skin infection of hemorrhoid-infected scabies.

Why? Because considering the NBA is the world’s most enjoyable league (with, from my experience, the most open and accessible players), nothing here feels real. It’s all about hype and noise and bright lights and exploding T-shirt cannons and bling and yang and the painfully desperate need to present oneself as cool. At the LA edition of the NBA All-Star Weekend, you wear a $150 ski cap indoors whether it’s 40 degrees or 80 degrees. At the LA edition of the NBA All-Star Weekend, jeans must be torn just so; sneakers (wait—athletic shoes) that cost less than $500 are the footwear of peons. There is one way to hug at the All-Star Weekend—a casual lean in, elbow at a 90-degree lift, pound with the opposite hand, love sans affection; “What up, kid?”, not, “Holy cow—it’s so great to see you, man! How’s life? How are Judy and the kids!” Tap water is a no-no, $7 bottles of Whatever Designer Brand of Tap Water Is Available is preferred. Everyone wears the same general expression—bemused contented indifference. When you’re handed something—a Gatorade, a cookie, a schedule—you don’t say “Thanks.” You nod. Appreciation in the mildest form.

On All-Star Weekend, one can’t be too happy or too sad, for that would convey an emotion that might be construed as human by those convinced you never use a toilet. And if you’re a celebrity sitting courtside at the Staples Center, and your face is shown on the Jumbotron, there is but one thing to do: Nod, stiffly, then flash a low peace sign. Never let them see you smile.

The illusion feels exhausting.

But wait. Let’s start at the beginning.

Let’s start with Chris Mihm.

===

Good Deed Friday

The three-day NBA All-Star Weekend is all about legends.

Everyone is a legend. Actually, scratch that. You’re not a legend. And I’m certainly not a legend. But if you’ve played in the league for more than .00001 seconds, you are “NBA legend (Fill in the name).”

I am first made aware of this phenomenon in the lead up to the weekend, when the NBA’s (impressive, dogged) PR machine begins sending me 4,542 emails per minute. The first person I see labeled as “NBA legend” is Felipe Lopez, who is scheduled to appear at a refurbished basketball court in Los Angeles. Now, I remember Lopez from his time at St. John’s, when he was expected to be Chris Mullin but wound up Ron Rowan. Still, he reached the NBA, and over a three-team, four-season span averaged 5.8 points in 249 games. According to basketballreference.com, those numbers compare favorably to several other NBA legends, including Bubbles Hawkins, Kedrick Brown, Emanual Davis and Trajan Langdon.

Yeah.

Over the next few days, the NBA press releases tell me Acie Law is an NBA legend (he started eight games in the league—ever), Jason Collins is an NBA legend (um, no), Ron Harper and Horace Grant are NBA legends (highly debatable), Jerry Stackhouse is an NBA legend (a little less debatable), A.C. Green is an NBA legend (legendary pimp hustler), Detlef Schrempf is an NBA legend (getting closer) and George Gervin is an NBA legend (sold).

But the fruition of legend hits on the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 16, when my son Emmett accompanies me to the Los Angeles Convention Center to pick up my media credential. He then tags along as we visit Thomas Jefferson Elementary School in Compton, where we’re told a gaggle of NBA legends will be helping to build a new playground.

Not yet numb to the NBA legend phenomenon, I’m initially thinking, oh, Norm Nixon! Perhaps Robert Horry! And indeed, we arrive as Harper and Grant are tightening some screws on a slide. It’s a nice scene (I feel comfortable surmising that neither Ron Harper nor Horace Grant is particularly handy), but I wonder aloud whether more NBA legends might be appearing.

Then, the ocean parts.

I am directed to a very large man about 50 feet away. He is skinny and short haired and covered by tattoos. I am told he is an NBA legend, which confuses me because—other than looking somewhat like the bass player from Lit—he is utterly unrecognizable. Emmett and I are standing with four or five volunteers, and I quietly ask the group, “Who is that?”

A woman named Delores chuckles. “That’s funny,” she says. “We were thinking the same thing.”

I look closer. And closer. Suddenly . . . lightbulb.

“I’m pretty sure it definitely might be Chris Mihm,” I say, and Delores—quiet for a moment—appropriately asks, “Who’s Chris Mihm?”

By statistics alone, Chris Mihm is a former NBA center who averaged 7.5 points and 5.3 rebounds over nine journeyman seasons.

By NBA PR standards, he is an NBA legend.

“Go ask Chris Mihm for his autograph,” I tell Emmett, then hand him my notepad.

He is 11 and eager.

“OK,” he says.

Seconds later he returns with this:

We are all silent.

“What does that say?” Delores asks.

“Cheese Pizza?” Emmett suggests.

Nope.

“Chocolate Poop.”

Nope.

It’s Cherokee Parks.

NBA Legend.

Fifteen minutes later, I spot a gaggle of kids surrounding a young African-American man with a gold chain. A woman poses for a photo with him, then asks that he sign her T-shirt with a black Sharpie. He’s very accommodating.

“That was cool,” I say. “Who was that?”

She shrugs, then suggests, “When I get home I’ll ask my husband.”

I’m skeptical this will work. Emmett is again assigned to signature duty, and

he returns with this:

The autograph seems to read Ad Loy and #33. Or maybe Al Long and #33. Alas, there is neither an Ad Loy nor an Ad Long on a 2018 NBA roster. I ask a passing child, who says. “I think his name’s Gibby. He plays for the Raptors.”

The last man to wear No. 33 for Toronto was Jamario Moon—nine years ago. It seems unlikely he’d be building a playground in Compton during 2018 All-Star festivities.

Besides, Jamario Moon’s nickname definitely wasn’t Gibby.

===

Media Saturday

The room inside the Los Angeles Convention Center is enormous. Blue carpet. Screens everywhere. Smells like a department store. Hundreds upon hundreds of credentialed journalists from outlets no one has heard of. Fans in makeshift bleachers, some of who forked over more than $100 (cha-ching) to watch TJ Maxx-outfitted nerds (like me) walk back and forth carrying notepads and microphones while complaining about the facility’s uniquely flat soda taps.

I am still on the lookout for NBA legends, because I’m researching a book project that involves them. The league says that, come 11:30, there will be real NBA legends entering the room. I’m still thinking Kareem and Karl Malone. No. Four “legends” appear—Allan Houston, Nate Robinson, Carlos Boozer and Stephen Jackson. None are affiliated with the NBA for the event.

My disappointment fades because, for the first time ever, I am witnessing athletes trying to work as media. This brings me great joy. In particular, I follow around Boozer, the former NBA All-Star who is here serving as some sort of correspondent for Sports Illustrated’s TV venture. Boozer was an excellent low-post player with a nose for the basket and a buffet of moves.

As a journalist . . . well . . .

The one-time Utah Jazz cornerstone moseys up to Mike D’Antoni as the Team Steph head coach chats with the media at a small table. Boozer is holding a black microphone, and he arrives armed with a single question. A graduate of Duke University, Boozer is surely a deep thinker who has asked himself about the meaning of life and about God’s existence and about heaven and earth and all points between. So, as the gaggle quiets and Boozer brings forward his microphone, I am eager to hear his contribution to humanity.

“Coach,” he says, “who is one of your favorite players you ever coached?”

Pfft.

Nearby, I spot Langston Galloway, the Detroit Pistons guard who is working this week as a correspondent for something called LG Kicks. Save for his ripped jeans and vintage black-and-red Jordans, Galloway looks every bit the part. A press credential dangles from his neck. I approach, introduce myself and crack, “So now you know how we feel.”

He grins sheepishly. “Man, you’re not kidding,” Galloway says. “It’s really not as easy as it looks. And I’m saying that even though I have a huge advantage over you.”

“You do?” I say.

“Of course,” replies. “I’m a player.”

===

The members of the two All-Star teams enter to meet with the media. LeBron is swarmed, and scores big points by admitting he can’t remember the name of the lightweight Fox News host who, two days earlier, suggested he should just shut up and dribble (Hint: It’s Laura Ingraham).

Unlike any other sports league, the NBA—wicked smart when it comes to PR—issues a media credential to anyone with a pen, a blog, a pulse or a pet horse. Once upon a time, you’d attend these events and see only people from familiar newspapers and magazines. As a result, the questions were—if not always brilliant—professional and informed. Those days are long gone.

Now, I’m side by side with reporters representing places like S Sport and Morgunbladid (at one point, the man standing next to me is, I learn, an account executive for Verizon. His company ran out of tickets, so they gave him a press pass). As I bound from player table to player table, I am struck by some of the tougher queries.

Among them:

Who are your five favorite MCs?

Do you like cooking?

Do you think your team can win?

What is your favorite color?

One reporter, trying to be funny, asks Jimmy Butler whether the two of them might shower together. The ensuing groans are audible.

As all this transpires, I amble over to Stephen Jackson, the former journeyman gunner. I am not sure why he is here, and I’m not entirely sure Stephen Jackson knows why he is here. However, there are probably, oh, 2,000 people in this room—and he is the only one sporting sunglasses. Which is weird, because it’s dark, and the whole I’m-so-cool sunglass thing went out of vogue in 1998.

So I ask Jackson, to which he says, well, nothing. He merely glares.

I back away, slowly.

===

Between the media stuff and the evening’s festivities, there is time to kill. So I walk from the convention center to Staples Center along Figueroa Street. It is a nuclear circus of the weird.

In no particular order, members of the Lost Tribes of Israel tell me I’m not Jewish and damned to hell (I fail to provide details of my 1985 Bar Mitzvah at the Mt. Kisco, N.Y. Holiday Inn). Members of Jehovah Witness (positioned directly across from the Lost Tribes of Israel) tell me I’m Jewish and damned to hell. A man tries selling me a plastic $20 Clippers necklace; a woman tries selling me a $7 jug of un-ripened fruit (she succeeds); an elderly man with a LOVE JESUS sign says 9.11 was an inside job. I step in a pile of dog feces.

Lastly, I spot a kid wearing a Joel Przybilla Milwaukee Bucks jersey.

I am dumbfounded.

===

On Saturday night, before the kickoff of the skills competition, Adam Silver meets with the media in the bowels of the Staples Center.

It is nothing short of remarkable.

The NBA commissioner is asked, repeatedly, about LeBron, Laura Ingraham and the activism of the league’s players. Throughout the weekend officials and players reference Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and the sacrifices made by stars from past ages—and Silver doesn’t flinch. He wants the men of the NBA to speak up. To be bold, if boldness is needed.

It’s a striking contradiction to the NFL, where—after initially backing its players’ right to kneel—many owners caved and buckled and turned a protest over the mistreatment of minorities into a big nebulous nothing.

Silver, it seems, will not follow suit.

“I’ve said before,” he says. “To me as commissioner of the NBA, this is a legacy of important work that I’ve inherited, that I continue to encourage, and it doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with everything that’s said at any given moment, but the fact that these players are not just basketball players, they’re multi-dimensional, they care about their communities, and they care about what’s happening in their country. They then care enough to speak out, and sometimes at great risk to themselves because it’s not lost on them that there are some people who will disagree with them. Social media is full of hate as well.

“So I just conclude by saying I’m really proud of them.”

I have chills.

===

Saturday evening’s activities are a mixed bag.

Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets wins the skills challenge, and a nation yawns.

Devin Booker of the Phoniex Suns wins the three-point contest, and a nation awakens.

Larry Nance, Jr. and Donovan Mitchell meet in the finals of the Slam Dunk Contest . . . and . . . well . . .

It’s amazing.

To be honest, my expectations are low. The last time I truly cared about the result of a dunk contest was 1992, when I was a student journalist at the University of Delaware and a Blue Hens forward named Alexander Coles appeared in the NCAA edition (he placed a disappointing seventh). Since then, the post-Dominique, post-Spud Webb, post-Michael Jordan competitions have felt depressingly anticlimactic. Sure, there have been some magical moments—Vince Carter, J.R. Rider, Blake Griffin. But, overall, dunking is an art form better performed when it comes in a game, preferably atop a cowering Shawn Bradley.

This is different. Mitchell performs one of his dunks wearing a throwback Darrell Griffith No. 35 Utah Jazz uniform—short-shorts and all. He does another in an old-school Vince Carter Raptors top. Nance breaks out a copy of his father’s vintage Phoenix Suns jersey, then later does a dunk that, truly, has never before been seen—leaping high into the air, throwing the ball up against the glass, tapping it and slamming it in a singular motion. There is a 30-second delay in the building, until the replay is shown and Staples Center erupts.

Is it the most visually spectacular dunk of all time? No.

Is it the best? Perhaps.

===

Sunday Game Day

I am inside the All-Star Legends Brunch. In 1 1/2 hours, I will ask Theo Ratliff what it’s like to be Anthony Avent.

Until then, I am watching Mark Eaton (7-foot-4, 275 pounds) eat cubes of fruit with a fork. It is a majestic, miraculous, unparalleled sight to behold, and rarely has a strawberry looked so tiny. I am watching Dikembe Mutombo pose for no fewer than 200 photographs, smile never fading. I am watching Jerry West’s eyes redden as he pays homage to his friend and former teammate, Elgin Baylor. I am watching Billy Crystal, the guest performer, crack that the 2017-18 Cavs “have more NBA players than the Kardashian sisters” and “The game is much more diverse (than it once was)—now there are three gentile owners.”

Mostly, I am watching Bill Walton.

He is being honored with the Hometown Hero Award, and he is the morning’s only recipient to wear sneakers, slacks and a short-sleeved shirt. He paces the stage like Eddie Murphy in his Delirious days. Intensely. Ferociously. And, ahem, awkwardly. Walton’s speech is very Bill Walton. It lasts forever. Half the attendees check their cell phones. Someone at my table is playing a Pac•Man app. At one point I press RECORD on my iPhone and devote myself to including one minute of straight Bill Walton in this diary.

So, with no further ado . . .

The way I stood with Wilt. And the way I stood with Kareem. And Magic. And Jamal. And Greg. And Jerry. And with all the different people. And as it all comes full circle to me today, and I get a chance to stand on this incredible stage, with all the people I love, and there are going to be people—Jerry said it perfect–I’m going to forget. Please don’t take it personal. I have no memory. But what I want to say as I thank all of you, ultimately it’s about the team. The nicest thing anybody ever said about me as a basketball player was that I made my teammates play better. No one made me a better player than the greatest teammate that I ever had, Maurice Lucas. Maurice Lucas is dead.

Click.

===

I confuse Theo Ratliff for Anthony Avent.

I spend the next 25 minutes drowning my sorrows in free scrambled eggs.

They’re watery.

===

There is a party, the Mitchell & Ness Annual All Star Brunch, being held less than a mile from Staples Center in some sort of club. My old Slam Magazine pal, Russ Bengtson, forwards me the invitation and suggests I RSVP. “There might be some players worth talking to,” he says.

I’m in.

I come with expectations. Because Mitchell & Ness is famous for throwback gear, I assume the room will be filled with throwback superstars from past generations. Instead, the room is filled with hipsters.

I know . . . I know—“hipsters” is the language of the old; right there with “groovy” and “fresh” and “cool.” But, without exaggeration, I find myself in a room surrounded by plates of kale salad, postage stamp-sized brownies and 600 millennials wearing skinny jeans and the spotless stitched throwback jerseys of players I am 100 percent certain they have never heard of.

Three things catch my eye:

— One of the items temporarily hanging from the club’s rafters is a blue No. 14 Anthony Mason Knicks jersey. Which reminds me that, about 10 years ago, Anthony Mason—long retired from basketball—entered the Cosi in my hometown of New Rochelle, N.Y. wearing a blue No. 14 Anthony Mason Knicks jersey.

— I arrive expecting celebrities. I spot ESPN’s Arash Markazi. We both take note of the room’s fashionistas, and I confess my shirt was purchased at the Costa Mesa Marshall’s for $14. He looks at his own duds and says, “Bought mine at a store even lower on the totem pole.” We don’t last long.

— The Mitchell & Ness party features graft—every guest is given an All-Star hat and T-shirt. It’s a quirky thing, the massive numbers of freebies presented to people who, generally, need not freebies. I take a bag, walk a block, find a young boy with his mother at a bank machine. “Are you guys going to the game?”

“Are you joking?” the mom says. “Have you seen how much they’re charging for tickets?”

I later check Stubhub—nothing left for less than $1,200.

I hand the child my Mitchell & Ness bag.

He’s giddy.

===

The game is almost here. I am sitting backstage, listening to Fergie rehearse the national anthem. She sounds like the merging of an ostrich and Cyndi Lauper after 700 cigarettes. I turn to the reporter next to me. “This,” he says, “won’t end well.”

I nod.

===

We’re near tipoff. As I walk off the court I am accidentally bopped in the head by an inflated mascot. It actually hurts. My nephew Jordan, attending with his father, stepmother and two brothers, excitedly texts me a photo taken with Pusha T.

I ask a Clippers cheerleader whether she’s enjoying the festivities. “Honestly,” she says, “I need a nap.” A security guard leans against a railing, drained. Brent Barry pats me on the shoulder. It feels sympathetic.

The fans are relatively quiet, but the arena’s volume is turned up to 11. Loud music. Loud DJs. The Sacramento Kings employ a man named Scott Freshour (aka: Scott Fresh). He works as the team’s MC, and was brought in for tonight’s festivities. I don’t know Scott. I have no beef with Scott. But I need Scott to stop barking, stop screaming, stop yelling, stop encouraging.

Just stop.

Fergie takes the stage. She sounds like the merging of an ostrich and Cyndi Lauper after 700 cigarettes. People are laughing throughout her performance. It doesn’t feel unpatriotic. Merely sad.

After nearly three full days of nonstop kinetic craziness, interrupted by flat cups of soda and Laura Ingraham references, the game actually begins.

And it’s sorta boring.

It’s a little less boring.

It’s actually pretty competitive.

It’s shockingly intense.

It’s really intense.

It’s . . . brilliant.

I’m in the press room. The clock is ticking down. Moments ago we were all writing. The sounds of fingers taping keys.

Now, silence.

Steph Curry has the ball in the corner. Kevin Durant is all over him.

Three . . .

Two . . .