It’s a tame All-Star Weekend
NEW ORLEANS | There’s nothing to see here, other than a modest, dignified contingent of NBA All-Star Weekend diehards, a few locals trying to glimpse a celebrity and a bunch of seasoned cops who have patrolled far bigger and rowdier crowds.
I was wrong. The Big Easy appears to be swallowing All-Star Weekend like it’s a bingo convention for sanctified grandmothers.
Whatever happens the rest of the weekend, we can accurately chalk it up to typical French Quarter madness, the normal revelry and criminality that go along with partying in a city that takes pride in its dirtiness and corruption and is struggling to heal from Mother Nature’s wounds.
I’ve been coming to New Orleans for Final Fours, Super Bowls, gumbo and hurricanes since 1993, since Chris Webber called a timeout the Michigan Wolverines didn’t have. This All-Star Weekend crowd is the tamest and thinnest I’ve ever seen. Friday night, as I strolled the French Quarter a little past midnight, a cop on horseback estimated the crowd was one-fourth of what the Quarter gets for the Bayou Classic, a traditional football game between Grambling and Southern.
“Nobody came,” said my buddy Branson Wright, who covers the Cavaliers for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.
“My only regret,” Players Association president Billy Hunter said, summarizing his All-Star feelings, “is we don’t have the kind of crowds we usually get.”
There’s a theory that people skipped this weekend because they feared post-Katrina New Orleans, its exacerbated economic crisis and desperate citizen survivors. The theory doesn’t hold up when you consider the relatively strong crowds that attended the 2007 Bayou Classic and Essence Festival.
People were afraid of the kind of crowd ASW attracts. That fear multiplied after Las Vegas last year. It’s a terrible, factual generalization, but Vegas’ proximity to Los Angeles made it way too easy for LA gang members to drive to The Strip and hang out in hotel lobbies for three straight days.
From what I can see, there is a totally different crowd in New Orleans than Vegas. There are more sports coats than white T-shirts, more smiling, laughing faces than mean mugs. The Las Vegas air of hostility has been replaced by an air of good times.
Now, it is a bit more difficult to find that good time because the crowd is so small.
TNT broadcaster Kenny Smith has traditionally thrown one of the biggest, baddest parties of All-Star Weekend. A year ago in Vegas, there were nearly as many people waiting to get inside Smith’s party as there were partying inside.
Friday night, I walked over to Smith’s party at the House of Blues with Lincoln Prep grad and Washington Post NBA writer Michael Lee, and we glided right inside to an empty party. It was just before midnight, and the place was dead. Warren Sapp was the only celebrity we saw.
Lee had earlier stopped by Michael Jordan’s party and said it was much better.
“Jordan’s party was real nice, real classy,” Lee described. “Probably more laid back than other All-Star affairs I’ve been to. This is my sixth All-Star Weekend. But there were a lot of women at Jordan’s party and a lot of former and current players.”
Just my luck, I wormed my way into the wrong party. ESPN also threw a hot party, featuring a live performance from positive rapper Common.
“Common put on a good show,” my boy J.A. Adande reported. “He didn’t just do a couple of songs and break out. He did a full, legit set with a live drummer and keyboard player.”
I ended my night at Harrah’s Casino, another mistake. The cheapest craps table I could find had a $25 minimum. You start taking full odds on those bets and it’s real easy to leave New Orleans broke, especially when the Marriott on Canal Street is charging $4 for 16-ounce bottles of Evian water.
Unless something wild happens at the Players Association party Saturday night — Maze (featuring Frankie Beverly) and Snoop Dogg are the scheduled performers — I’m going to turn my attention for the rest of my time here to basketball and what is shaping up as a terrific NBA season.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call 816-234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.
