Blog Entry #10: February 28, 2011

In Which Kevin Recounts His First NBA All-Star Experience

Like I’ve said all along, it doesn’t matter how you make the All Star Game, as long as you get there—because once you do, nobody can ever take it away from you. Well, I’m an NBA All Star now, and I always will be. But the way I got there was a bit unusual, that’s for sure.

Just from talking to my agent, a few other people around the league and doing the math in my head in the days leading up to the announcement of the Western Conference reserves, I knew it most likely wasn’t gonna happen this year. But all along, we knew that David Stern, the NBA commissioner, had to pick someone to replace Yao Ming, who was voted to the team but couldn’t play because of an injury. We knew that slot was out there, and we always thought I had a pretty good shot at it. So when the picks came out for the reserves—and I wasn’t on the list—I wasn’t too surprised. But I also knew it wasn’t over. And I couldn’t complain about any of the reserves. Tim Duncan is a future Hall of Famer, and he’s on the team with the best record in the league so far this year—obviously he has to get picked. Blake Griffin—he’s having a great year, the All Star Game is in Los Angeles, and the Clippers are having a better year than us. How can you be bitter about those guys?

When the reserves were announced, I was in Toronto for a game, and after I saw them, I just turned off my phone for the night. I didn’t take any calls, didn’t read any texts. I just kind of let it be. I didn’t want to deal with all the condolences—but also, I knew it wasn’t over. David Stern still had to replace Yao. The next day, the whole afternoon went by and he still hadn’t made his pick. So 45 minutes before the game, I checked my phone one last time. No texts, no calls, nothing. So I turned it off and tossed it in my bag. Thirty-eight minutes before the game is when we start our team meeting, and usually they clear out all the reporters and cameramen. But this time Coach Rambis said, "Hold on, we have an announcement to make." I had no idea what was going on. That’s when Coach told everyone I had made the All Star Team. The video of me reacting—you can see how shocked I am; I really thought Coach was messing with me—is on YouTube. They even showed it on SportsCenter that night.

After the game—which we lost, by the way, so that sucked—I had a ton of texts, phone calls, everything, and I didn’t open any of them until I got back home. But the first call I returned was to my dad, and that was a pretty emotional phone call, because he was the one who put the ball in my hands from an early age. It was one of those moments, just like when I got drafted, when I played my first game, signed my first contract. While we were talking, that was when it finally really sunk in—the moment where I was like, _"Damn. I’m headed to the All Star Game." _

Now let me tell you about All Star Weekend, and it’ll be fast, because man, it was constant motion. There was never really any stopping or any downtime. On Friday, we had a meeting for all the Western Conference All Stars at the Marriott in downtown Los Angeles. All the players are there, and the purpose of it is just to go over the basics for the whole weekend—practice times, where you need to be and when, what to wear, stuff like that. But you walk in that room, and it’s a pretty amazing group. You got Dirk, you got Kobe, you got Manu and Tim. All down the list. And then you have the young’uns—the first times, Blake, Russell Westbrook and me. There’s a point where you take a step back and you’re like, Whoa, look at all these guys. It was very cool.