The Black Athlete…We should have an All-Star week

West Team’s Russell Westbrook, of the Oklahoma City Thunder, holds the MVP trophy after the NBA All-Star basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015, in New York. The West Team won 163-158. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
West Team’s Russell Westbrook, of the Oklahoma City Thunder, holds the MVP trophy after the NBA All-Star basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015, in New York. The West Team won 163-158. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

 Each year in mid-February, the NBA All-Star Game plants itself in a different American city and takes over for a weekend’s worth of basketball games, events, after-parties and entertaining shows, with plenty of American celebrities in attendance from every walk of life.
In 2002, I attended the NBA All-Star game festivities in my hometown of Philadelphia, and the next year I attended All-Star Game events in Atlanta, where I finally had a chance to witness the legend of Allen Iverson and his dozen-man entourage at a hotel restaurant. Both occasions remain eye-popping and memorable, as if they had just happened yesterday.
Omar-Tyree
Omar-Tyree

With the NBA All-Stars, their peers and families all sitting at courtside, we get a chance to witness them return to being oversized kids, who once dreamed about being professional athletes and making an All-Star game appearance in a number of capacities themselves. These happy ballers then receive an overflow of validation from the excited movie stars, musicians, politicians, popular businessmen, supermodels and comedians, who all sit at courtside with them and whoop it up for the big show, while thousands of fans sit and enjoy it right behind them.
Each year I sat at home and watched, as a kid myself, and as an adult with my two sons, while only imagining what it felt like to be Dr. J, George Gervin, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Shaquille Oneal, Kobe Bryant and now Lebron James, Dirk Nowitzki, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. What does it feel like to be celebrated by so many American citizens and superstars in their own light, who all come out and sit still to be amazed by you?
For those few hours in time, the world seems to stop and stand still for superstar basketball players; or at least it felt that way to me. The validation of skills was the reason why we all wanted to become professional athletes in the first place, not just to play the game and to live comfortably with million-dollar contracts, but to be celebrated for adding something special to the world, whether it be in football, boxing, baseball, hockey, track and field, World Cup soccer, or the Olympic Games.
With as much glitter, star power and fashion statements that are made each year during the Academy Awards, the Grammys, the ESPYs, American Music, MTV, Soul Train, BET and NAACP Image Awards, nothing seems as fun or as natural as the NBA All-Star Game. There’s no fake adoration or bitten tongues, while dressed in thousand-dollar designer gowns and penguin suits from athletes who celebrate their game, themselves and each other. It’s all real excitement and jubilation, while dressed in warm-up, sneakers, blue jeans, jackets, shades, baseball cats and jewelry.
I watched it all again this year from New York City, where a Muggsy Bogues-sized comedian Kevin Hart – who has become a stable at NBA events – won another celebrity game MVP, while playing against 13-year-old phenom, Mo’ne Davis, who is now transitioning from Little League Baseball to her first love of basketball.
I watched Steph Curry and his gray-headed dad, Dell, lose in a team shoot-out of a current NBA player, a retired NBA veteran and a current WNBA player, before Steph went on to later swish 21-25 shots for a record of 27 points to win the 3-point shooting contest. Zach LaVine, a 19-year old leaper, who was a UCLA freshman last year this time, scored a perfect 100 points after two incredible back to back dunks, with legendary leaper, Dr. J, taking his sweet old time as the fifth and final decision-making judge.
Then we watched the marquee game, where Oklahoma Thunder’s fireball of energy, Russell Westbrook, scored 41 points for the MVP Award, and one point shy of Wilt Chamberlain’s 1962 record. The teams also scored a combined record of 321 total points in a 163-158 win for the Western Conference over the East.
That’s 321 points with no overtime minutes, and a new 3-points record of 48. You talk about going all out to excite the fans; that’s what the NBA All-Star Game is all about—FANtastic!
Sometimes I wish the NBA All-Star Game and events could last for a whole week instead of mere weekend. If only the rest of us could have a weekend of celebration like they do for what we do, we could all feel reenergized each year to continue loving the jobs and careers that we engage in and celebrate each other. Wouldn’t that be nice? It would make us all feel like All-Stars.
Omar Tyree is a New York Times bestselling author, an NAACP Image Award winner for Outstanding Fiction, and a professional journalist, who has published 27 books, including co-authoring Mayor For Life; The Incredible Story of Marion Barry Jr. View more of his career and work @ www.OmarTyree.com

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