Bernucca: For me, The Best All-Star Game Ever

All-Star Weekend didn’t start out too well for my son, Andrew.

On Friday morning, he had an argument with his first serious girlfriend a day before his first serious Valentine’s Day. With that hanging over his head, he had to go to work, where his primary job is to kick mallrats out of the store. And it was the last work day before the All-Star Game and we still hadn’t heard from someone who had said that maybe, just maybe, he could get us into Madison Square Garden on Sunday.

I’ve been to 10 All-Star Weekends. My first was the NBA at 50 celebration in Cleveland in 1997, which was quite an introduction to the media meat market. I saw Vince Carter’s trampoline act in Oakland in 2000, Allen Iverson’s refusal to lose in Washington in 2001 and Michael Jordan’s farewell in 2003. I even had been to an All-Star Weekend in New York, in 1998.

But during that time, I had never attended the All-Star Game simply as a fan and had never taken my son to the All-Star Game, probably because I had never attended the All-Star Game simply as a fan.

For years, my wife pestered me to take Andrew to All-Star Weekend. My answer was always “no” for a number of reasons, mostly because he was too young but also because All-Star Weekend is not as fun as you may think for a writer.

Yes, the NBA treats you very well with accommodations, credentials, access, seating, food, gifts, etc. Some people buy their luggage from Louis Vuitton. I got mine free from the NBA. And virtually all of the people I have met have made me feel like part of the NBA family.

But the folks back at the office expect you to crank out copy commensurate with the enormity of the event. So you write. A lot. You go to the media meat market on Friday and go back to the hotel room and write. Then you go to the Rising Rookie Phenom Challenge and write. Then you go to Saturday’s All-Star practice and write. Then the commissioner talks and you write. Then there’s four events that represent basketball’s version of Ringling Bros. and you write – after each one.

The weekend really doesn’t open up until Sunday, and most of the time you just want to put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on your doorknob and sleep until you have to go to the game that night. And write.

Plus you have to hang out with me. Does that sound like fun for a kid?

Things have been different the last couple of years. Sheridan Hoops allows me to be more of an armchair writer and save the cost of travel, hotels and meals for frivolous items such as Andrew’s college education, which I still think my wife and I will be paying for in this fashion.

And as Andrew has gotten older, his passion for basketball has waned. He used to play high school ball and AAU and watch NBA games with me all the time, but not anymore. He still follows the NBA tangentially, which is unavoidable in our home. But other things interest him more now, like soccer and baseball. And girls.

When I picked him up after work, All-Star Weekend had gotten considerably better. His girlfriend had come to see him at his job, they worked things out and plans were back on for his first serious Valentine’s Day. He spent the majority of the drive home telling me how things had returned to normal. He looked like he had just put down a piano.

Then I gave him more good news. That someone I mentioned earlier had come through and there were two tickets for Sunday’s All-Star Game waiting at a midtown hotel.

My son isn’t a spoiled brat. He has shared the cost of his AAU fees with us. He knows that some of his college choices are out of the realm of possibility due to finances. When I told him that I would try to get tickets, his response was, “It’s OK if you don’t.”

Andrew also isn’t big on displays of emotion. He gets more excited about his team scoring a goal in Football Manager than an acceptance letter from a college. Sometimes I think his favorite word is “Mm Hmmn.”

But when I told him about the tickets, he stretched his seat belt and gave me the best hug he could from the passenger seat. I didn’t care that the night was colder than a banker’s heart. I didn’t care that he didn’t yet have his driver’s license. I didn’t care that we were on a dark, icy road in a car that smelled like carbon monoxide from a faulty exhaust system. I got the same hug he gives to his girlfriend.

Who cared if it was going to snow Saturday night? Who cared if we had to start the day by shoveling, which we have done every other day since the Martin Luther King Day holiday? Who cared if New York was borrowing Chicago’s wind for a day? Steph and Dell Curry, eat your heart out. We were going to the All-Star Game!

The All-Star Game is so much better when you don’t have to write. The seats were in the refurbished section of Madison Square Garden known as “The Bridge,” which initially can make you feel like you are at Cedar Point but actually is a pretty good view. I saw a handful of old friends from the NBA. Gheorghe Muresan walked by and I was literally the only one in our section who noticed, even though the man is 7-7.

During warmups, Andrew offered a fantastic analogy.

“You know what this game is like?” he said. “It’s like when I used to go to those scrimmage workouts at Central Connecticut Hoopstars. Everyone got to play, and everyone was good. They would put time on the clock and keep score, but nobody cared about defending or boxing out or screening. It was all ‘my-turn’ basketball. And if the score got out of hand, it would just get worse.

“But if we looked up with five minutes to go and it was a close game, then everybody cared. Guys started defending and cutting hard. Coaches Papale and Witter actually started coaching instead of just subbing. We argued with the refs. This is just like that.”

He was right. Except for the part where it was short suburban kids whose careers would end when they turned 18.

To his credit, Andrew stopped looking at his phone long enough to watch the game. I told him about the times when I was his age and would go to the Garden with friends, sit in the blues and bet against the Knicks, mimicking legendary PA announcer John Condon – “That was Junior Bridgeman. Bucks lead, 67-54.” – and driving the fans around us crazy. He told me that Ariana Grande was not something you ordered at Starbucks.

We laughed at the spectacle of it all. We made a gentlemen’s bet on who would be the first big to make a 3-pointer, with me taking Tim Duncan, him taking Marc Gasol, and LaMarcus Aldridge making us both losers. When DeMarcus Cousins first entered, he looked like someone had just woken him from a nap. The game was moving so quickly that he was on the wrong end of the floor on four straight possessions and looked like he was experimenting with Kings owner Vivek Ranadive’s idea of cherry-picker defense.

We wondered what party LeBron James was at Saturday night when he missed the backboard entirely with a self-pass. When Russell Westbrook had 23 points in about seven minutes, we imagined the worst MVP interview in All-Star history, with him breaking the trophy and storming out of the media room. We yelled, “Layup!” every time Kyle Korver caught a pass at the arc and squared up. We chuckled at Dwyane Wade in street clothes, again. We agreed that Blake Griffin did the best impersonation of my Brooklyn accent.

And when the third quarter ended with a tie score, we had a Central Connecticut Hoopstars scrimmage on our hands. All of a sudden, substitutions mattered and boxing out was important. We hated on Carmelo Anthony, the ultimate “my-turn” player, and his multiple negative five-point plays – you know, miss a three at one end, get beat for a leakout layup at the other. We implored East coach Mike Budenholzer to be as selfish as Anthony and put Korver and his three Hawks teammates back in the game. We wondered if Westbrook would take down Wilt Chamberlain’s scoring record. It was a blast.

But the best part of the night didn’t even happen at the game. After picking up the tickets, we went to get something to eat at Five Guys. While waiting to order, the woman in front of us accidentally knocked over a display of gift cards, scattering them onto the floor. Without even thinking, Andrew bent over and picked them up, restacking the display as if it had never happened.

The guy taking our order said, “Thanks a lot, man.”

Jokingly, I responded, “Do we get a free meal now?”

And the guy said, “No, but I can give you free drinks.”

The free drinks were nice, but that wasn’t the best part. The best part was when we were talking about it later on, and Andrew said, “I mean, why wouldn’t you pick that up and help the guy?”

We need to go to more games together.

TRIVIA: Tom Heinsohn will become the fourth person inducted to the Hall of Fame as both a coach and player. Who were the first three? Answer below.

THE END OF CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT: Houston Rockets guard Patrick Beverley won the Skills Challenge, even though he ran the course incorrectly, lost his dribble twice and could not cleanly throw a chest pass into the catch basket.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins, on how he fared in the Slam Dunk Contest during his playing days:

“I won four. I got credit for two.”

TANKS A LOT!: Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony said it was “very likely” that he would shut it down for the rest of the season and have knee surgery after the All-Star Game. By waiving and buying out Amar’e Stoudemire, the Knicks are left with rookie Langston Galloway as their leading scorer (11.2 ppg) and journeyman Lou Amundson as their leading rebounder (6.0 rpg). Neither player was on the team on New Year’s Day.

LINE OF THE WEEK: James Harden, Houston at Phoenix, Feb. 10: 43 minutes, 13-23 FGs, 3-7 3-pointers, 11-14 FTs, 12 rebounds, nine assists, three steals, one block, five turnovers, 40 points in a 127-118 win. It was the second straight 40-point game and league-best sixth this season for Harden, who also had a season high in rebounds. In the fourth quarter, he was 7-of-10 from the field and 5-of-5 from the line for 20 points, making every Suns defender look like a restaurant maitre’d.

LINE OF THE WEAK: Hollis Thompson, Philadelphia vs. Golden State, Feb. 9: 28 minutes, 0-9 FGs, 0-4 3-pointers, 0-0 FTs, six rebounds, two assists, zero blocks, zero steals, six fouls, four turnovers, zero points in an 89-84 loss. The most disturbing aspect of Thompson’s disappearing act was that it immediately followed a stretch in which he averaged 19.0 points and made 11-of-17 3-pointers, the best three-game run of his career.

TRILLION WATCH: It was another ho-hum week for the heroes of zeros. In Monday’s Atlanta-Minnesota game, Hawks guard John Jenkins and Wolves guard Troy Daniels each had 2 trillions; Daniels was traded to Charlotte the next day. Rockets rookie Nick Johnson also had a 2 trillion Wednesday at the Los Angeles Clippers. But the weekly winner was Pistons rookie guard Spencer Dinwiddie, who had a 4 trillion Tuesday at Charlotte.

GAME OF THE WEEK: San Antonio at Golden State, Feb. 20. The fifth game of the annual “Rodeo Road Trip” for the Spurs, who will be coming off Thursday’s clash with the Los Angeles Clippers. This will be the first game back from the All-Star break for the league-leading Warriors, who are 23-2 at home – with one of the losses to San Antonio on Nov. 11.

GAME OF THE WEAK: Boston at LA Lakers, Feb. 22. For some reason, this game is on NBA TV. But there’s a much better matchup on AMC, where Rick Grimes and his underrated crew take on the deep and relentless walkers in a fierce rivalry.

TWO MINUTES: George Karl is the right coach for the Kings and DeMarcus Cousins. Karl will bring an immediate upgrade to the Kings’ offense, which is ninth in pace but just 18th in offensive rating and 16th in points per game. The players most likely to benefit are Ben McLemore and Carl Landry, although the guy who could really use a boost is rookie guard Nik Stauskas, who looks like his confidence is gone. In his last eight games, Stauskas has seven points on 1-of-17 shooting in 81 minutes. Karl also will hold Cousins accountable as the franchise player. To be fair, Cousins has done a pretty good job of that on his own this season, constantly preaching attitude and effort while – for the most part – walking the walk. You get the sense that Cousins doesn’t object to Karl being his coach. What he objects to is ownership and management changing course the way he changes socks. When a media member suggested to Cousins that the multiple coaching changes by the Kings were on the players, he responded, “Is it on the players, though? I wouldn’t necessarily say that. I mean, we were a team above .500 (under Mike Malone). So I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s on the players. Things happen for a reason. A lot of things we can’t control. What we can control is our effort on the floor.” … Kobe Bryant’s injury meant the Lakers did not have a single representative in any event at All-Star Weekend. They will come out of the break having lost 11 consecutive road games, the longest road skid in franchise history. … Among the changes Magic interim coach James Borrego has made is giving backup minutes to Dewayne Dedmon, who may be the fastest baseline-to-baseline center in the league. That has helped the defense; Orlando has yet to allow 100 points in splitting four games under Borrego after allowing at least 100 in dropping 12 of its last 14 under Jacque Vaughn. … Nets guard Deron Williams somehow missed 22 straight shots over a four-game stretch that finally ended Tuesday in Memphis. He is shooting 38 percent from the field, which would be by far the worst number of his career. … You would have to be living in an igloo to not know that Kevin Durant becomes a free agent next summer. When asked about being linked to the Knicks and Nets as potential destinations, Durant snorted, “I don’t even think about those teams.”

Trivia Answer: Bill Sharman, Lenny Wilkens, John Wooden. … Happy 34th Birthday, Qyntel Woods. … Yes, it was cold in New York this weekend, but look on the bright side. Next year everybody gets to go to Toronto in mid-February.

Chris Bernucca is the managing editor of SheridanHoops.com. His columns appear Monday during the season. You can follow him on Twitter.