Johnny Ludden of Yahoo! Sports: “Wasn’t this reason to relive those eight seasons they spent together with the Los Angeles Lakers, reason to treasure their three championships? Wasn’t nostalgia tugging at both? ‘No,’ Bryant said. No. That one word said all that needed to be said. Shaq can author the Lakers’ revisionist history. He can tell the world his long-running feud with Bryant was ‘all marketing.’ Kobe’s not playing that game. Not yet, at least. If this All-Star weekend proved anything – in addition to the Phoenix Suns putting the ‘fun’ back in dysfunction – it’s that Bryant isn’t quite ready to forgive and forget. He played nice. He smiled. He gave Shaq a hug. He even joined Shaq for a brief interview with TNT’s Craig Sager on Saturday. And after the two were named co-MVPs after leading the West to a runaway victory Sunday, Kobe even let Shaq take the trophy home to show his kids. But sentimental? Kobe doesn’t do sentimental.”
Marc J. Spears of The Boston Globe: “Celtic All-Stars Pierce, Allen, and Kevin Garnett paid homage to the 11-time champion before the game by hugging him while also enjoying a laugh. And during a timeout with 3:16 left in the second quarter at US Airways Center, Pierce, Garnett, and Allen surprised Russell by wheeling out a giant 75th birthday cake to him courtside by the East bench while Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ song played. Soon after, NBA officials brought Russell a piece of cake for him to enjoy. This All-Star Game definitely seemed to lift Russell’s spirits. ‘We just said happy birthday to him,’ Allen said. ‘I know his birthday was [last Thursday]. It’s great to celebrate it in front of so many people. You know, Bill will say one thing to you and laugh. And whatever he said might not be really that funny. But after he laughs, everybody starts laughing just for the fact that his laugh is so contagious. He’s always warm and fuzzy to be around when he laughs.’”
Rob Peterson of NBA.com: “Ah, All-Star. Where else can you literally bump into Oscar Robertson (‘Pardon me, Big O…’), have Magic Johnson stand behind you in a security line, see Spike Lee dressed like the Mad Hatter in velvet jacket and a top hat, see U.S. Senator John McCain give an impromptu press conference in a hallway and see Muhammad Ali leave All-Stars star struck? Only 2009 All-Star, of course. It’s been quite the weekend so far and Sunday hasn’t disappointed. It started with the NBA Legends Brunch and will conclude with the 58th edition of the NBA All-Star Game at U.S. Airways Center, which is now the epicenter of celebrity activity. With the exception of Michael Jordan, there may be no star bigger than Ali. The three-time world heavyweight champion visited each locker room, sitting next to Amar’e Stoudemire in the West locker room before heading to the East locker room. When Ali entered the East locker room, the cry, ‘Champ is here! Champ is here!’ reverberated throughout.”
Mike Monroe of the San Antonio Express-News: “Tim Duncan’s All-Star moment never involves showing off, but he acknowledged that he had planned to try a few dance moves during the hip-hop introductions at Sunday’s All-Star Game. When the time came? ‘I didn’t even hear them call my name,’ Duncan said. It was left to Suns center Shaquille O’Neal to dominate ‘Dancing With the All-Stars.’ ‘Pretty impressive,’ Duncan said. ‘He lives for that spotlight and does well with it. A lot of moves I can’t do.’ Duncan preferred to make his All-Star memory his annual ritual of a photo on the court between the third and fourth periods with his wife, Amy, and their two children.”
Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel: “Magic center Dwight Howard’s initial gut-feeling was probably right: There was little he could do for an encore after winning last year’s dunk contest. But it’s a good thing he went through with it. Because Dwight still put on the coolest move, providing an assist to Nate Robinson that allowed Krypto-Nate to win the event. Howard agreed to let Li’l Nate dunk over him, and that wrapped up the dunk title for the New York Knick. Tell me: With all the runaway egos in the NBA, what star would have done that for a competitor? Howard showed class and sportsmanship, which Robinson dutifully acknowledged. Dwight made a bigger statement by finishing second.”
Casey Holdahl of Blazers.com: “This year, All-Star Saturday also happened to be Valentine’s Day, and from what I saw out and about after the festivities, plenty of people took the opportunity to look for love in what most would consider to be all the wrong places. But not B.Roy. ‘I get to spend Valentine’s Day with my fiancé and my mom,’ said Roy. ‘Both my special ladies.’ And to hear Roy tell it, he’s not alone when it comes to All-Stars who prefer to play it low key on the party scene. No one should be so naive to think that every player is spending the weekend catching up with family, but there’s definitely a contingent that plays it cool. ‘I talked to Kobe and he said him and his wife stayed up all night playing poker,’ said Roy. ‘Chris Paul and his fiancé were just hanging out. She’s expecting a baby. All the guys I talked to, Chauncey (Billups), everybody is with their family. I don’t think people really know that. We get a break, and you want to spend it with your loved ones.’”
Brian Windhorst of The Plain Dealer: “Wearing No. 6, though, has become somewhat standard for James. Ever since his triumphant summer wearing the number for Team USA — which James has said was the best experience of his career — he wears the number during practices and workouts as a homage to that gold-medal effort and all the work that went into it. Often when he gives autographed jerseys as gifts to friends or special causes these days, he’ll sign an Olympic No. 6 jersey. So indeed, he is No. 23, but No. 6 is part of him too. Someday, there’s a chance it could be his number all the time. ‘It’s interesting to think about. I feel like 6 is my number, too,’ James said about the prospect of switching. ‘If the NBA retired 23 because of Michael (Jordan) like baseball did with Jackie Robinson (42), I would definitely switch it. Maybe I would someday, we’ll see.’ James wears No. 23 because of Jordan, who was his hero as a child, as have numerous players over the last decade. But now he’s carved out his own niche, and there’s a chance he’d want his own number.”
Mark Kiszla of The Denver Post: “Although Billups scored five points Sunday night during a 146-119 victory by the West at the All-Star Game, his real impact this weekend was to create buzz like the Nuggets have never heard. Oh, the razzling, dazzling Lakers and tough-as-barbed-wire Spurs are still regarded as the teams to beat in the Western Conference. The Nuggets, however, have flown so high in the standings since Billups arrived that they are no longer under the radar. In fact, when San Antonio all-star Tim Duncan was asked if he considered any other team besides the Lakers as a serious threat in the West, he did not hesitate. ‘Denver’s solid. They’ve got a bunch of athletes, a bunch of scorers,’ Duncan said. ‘They added somebody like Chauncey, who’s been there in a championship situation and produced at the highest level.’ Or as Lakers coach Phil Jackson put it: Billups has finally topped Denver’s obvious talent with a brain.”
A. Sherrod Blakely of MLive.com: “The Detroit Pistons likely will not add a Central Division banner to their collection this season. Homecourt advantage in the playoffs seems a bit of a stretch as well. However, there still is time to build momentum for a playoff berth, which for the first time in years is not a given. As the Pistons look to bounce back from a disappointing start, their best shot at improvement might be on the boards. Even when Detroit had Ben Wallace patrolling the paint, rebounding proved difficult at times. Although there are many factors contributing to Detroit’s high number of losses this season, the team’s inability to rebound has become a glaring weakness.”
Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman: “In the final minute of the Thunder’s 116-113 win over Sacramento on Feb. 8, Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks demanded one last defensive stop from his team. But rather than directing the young Thunder players during a late timeout, he demonstrated. Brooks walked over to Kevin Durant, stuck both hands under the lanky forward’s armpits and forcefully raised both his arms as to drive home his point. Play straight up. Use your length. Don’t foul. It’s those principles that Durant and Co. will get an ear full of as the team returns from All-Star Weekend today and resumes practice with a rare late session tonight. Brooks said the team’s No. 1 goal coming out of the break is continued improvement on the defensive end of the floor.”
Michael Hunt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “With the NBA trading deadline approaching, Hammond is nearing the point where the road divides. He could play it out with what he’s got left from this injury-decimated, overachievement of a season. Or he could get on with what eventually must be done, the remaking of a $71.3 million payroll that, at No. 12 in the NBA, is not only disproportionate to market size but also terribly restrictive in the current economy. Unless Hammond can somehow squeeze a big expiring contract out of someone – that Raef LaFrentz’s bad paper is the hottest ticket going tells you everything you need to know about the state of the NBA – the Bucks are better off doing nothing for now. Which, of course, means keeping Ramon Sessions and Charlie Villanueva, even at the risk of losing both without compensation at the end of the season. As Hammond mentioned just before the all-star break, he may not have a choice.”
Monte Poole of the Contra Costa Times: “When they released their schedule, we cracked open our wallets. When the season started going south, we kept buying. We’re still buying. The Warriors can lose talented players, lose their identity, lose any realistic chance to reach the playoffs — and still we have their back, lining up to smooch Don Nelson’s spurious aura and sprinkle money at the feet of our cute little NBA franchise. There’s a joke in there somewhere, and it’s on us. We’ve become such willing victims, it gives us too much credit to say we’re being scammed. With local hoops fans so comfortable supporting a team that competes well enough to win a third of its games, why on earth would ownership, as rumored by Chris Cohan, or management, as wielded by Bobby Rowell, ever get obsessive about building a contender? Even now, with unemployment soaring and the Warriors coming out of the All-Star break at 19-35 — and that’s after winning three straight — the We Believe cult flocks to Oracle Arena as if 65-inch plasmas and six-figure jobs are being handed out at halftime.”
Marc J. Spears of The Boston Globe: “Holding back tears, Ainge said he was ‘not living up to my responsibilities as a father and a husband’ during his news conference. Ainge hasn’t coached since, but he uses that experience to aid him in his front office role with the Celtics. ‘It was a great experience,’ Ainge said. ‘I’m glad that I coached. It helped me in the job that I have now . . . I thought I could get people to do things and get players to work harder. It wasn’t as easy as it appeared to be. I thought it would be better. Coaching is more difficult than I thought it would be, especially with grown men. It’s a constant sales job. But I liked the people I was coaching with a great deal. It’s a great experience. It helps me understand that when things happen so many of us immediately go to the coach for blame. If the coach would have done this or that . . . That’s an easy solution. I watch our team practices. I watch what we do and the emphasis. Sometimes it doesn’t look the same on the court. I think we need to be a lot more tolerant of coaches. I’m more into blaming players in the final stretch than coaches.’”
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: “‘That’s the first time I have seen an MVP that played 11 minutes in an All-Star game,’ Phil Jackson said. And that’ll be the last, because this promised to be goodbye for O’Neal as an All-Star. Only, it isn’t goodbye for the Suns. As badly as Phoenix management has tried, it can’t undo the mistake of absorbing Shaq’s $20 million-a-season contract that extends into 2010. There are no takers. So, the Suns are trying to move Amare Stoudemire and it threatens to spiral them into the stone ages. For far beyond the greatest basketball players in the world Sunday night, the movie stars and politicians, the music and lights, there was a grease board hanging in the Suns’ basketball-operations office with two distinct columns of possible trades: basketball-motivated deals on one side and salary dumps on the other. Make no mistake: The future of the franchise could be at the mercy of the impulsive, impatient Sarver. ‘Sarver is all over the map,’ said one Western Conference executive briefed on Suns matters. ‘One minute, he wants to do a basketball deal. And then the next, it’s a salary dump.’”
DraftExpress: “Outside of his ability to rebound, Oden has always been known for his ability to change the game with his defensive presence. He was often compared to Bill Russell based on the way he changed the game defensively during his single college season, and while he’s still quite a shot blocker, his numbers this season have been significantly dampened by three factors: his knee, the increased level of competition from college, and his inability to stay out of foul trouble. After changing shots on what seemed like every possession when he was manning the middle on the NCAA-level, Oden has struggled to find the same success in the NBA. In college, he was so explosive off the floor that he had no problem rotating late from the weak-side and still coming up with rejections, but with his knee obviously slowing him, he doesn’t enjoy that luxury in the NBA. He’s still a presence, but he’s had to develop better recognition and anticipation, two things that Nate McMillan continues to help him improve. It has been a tough adjustment, as he’s blocking only 1.2 shots per game, and adjusting far less than he has in the past. Oden has had a hard time recovering his lateral quickness, and it shows when he’s making his rotations. The weight he’s added doesn’t help in this regard, and it will be interesting to see how his defense improves as his knee gets closer to full strength.”
John Canzano of The Oregonian: “Durant scored 46 points against air in the rookie-sophomore game on Friday. But I’m more impressed by what he’s doing in the last month in regular-season games. He’s on his way, and he’s going to win scoring titles, and break scoring records, and Pritchard’s All-Star prediction might end up conservative. Oden has been inconsistent his rookie season. He’s raw on both ends of the floor. His offensive game is limited to a jump hook (either hand) and a dunk. That’s it. Also, he is slow to react defensively at times, plays erratic team defense, and finds himself out of position too often. Also, he’s been hurt. The knee. The ankle. The ankle II. Now, this patella-chip thing in his knee. Still, Portland got the right guy. I’m convinced of it. And I’m thinking those on the outside looking in, those who don’t see Oden in practice and night to night, you know, the ones snickering at the Blazers today, are missing the point.”
