Beasts of the East? It’s Small Talk

Brave new millennium.

Inevitably, since the downcast Warriors were hosting, it rained throughout the entire 49th All-Star weekend. However, on the plus side, the Arena at Oakland wasn’t hit by a tidal wave Sunday, so maybe everybody’s luck is changing.

The NBA kids, trying to carry the torch, held an OK All-Star game, inconvenienced by the fact that almost all the gigantic ones and point guards were on the West team. Thus it was actually a feat for the East, your junior conference, that it got within 137-126.

“I’ll tell you what,” said East Coach Jeff Van Gundy, asked about the prospects of a team with a front line of 7-foot Tim Duncan, 7-1 Shaquille O’Neal and 6-11 Kevin Garnett, “it would set the record for the most wins.

“They may lose, I don’t know to who. With Garnett’s range now, he could easily be a true three [small forward]. He can guard on the perimeter and then you have the dominant low-post players, O’Neal and Duncan, that would require double-teams. I could play guard for that team and win big.”

All the East had at center were Alonzo Mourning, an overlisted power forward, and Dikembe Mutombo. Its only point guard was Allen Iverson, whose coach, the 76ers’ Larry Brown, long ago gave up hope of Iverson passing often enough to play the position. The only power forward was Indiana’s Dale Davis, who’d be about the eighth best in the West.

Of course, the East also had the young man of the moment, Vince Carter, who breathed life into the long-slumbering dunk competition Saturday with a performance that had players and fans alike bug-eyed, and the arena on its feet before his last attempt, a first.

O’Neal, the co-most valuable player of the real game, asked Sunday about his high point of the weekend, said, “Watching Vince, of course. I mean, I never saw nobody do stuff like that.”

Of course, TNT spread the dunk competition out over an hour, the better to sell more advertising time.

If there’s one word that describes the NBA All-Star game, it’s “overproduced.” Sunday, going for maximum glitz, the league had the players introduced as they stepped through a replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, festooned with jets emitting smoke. Phil Jackson, who is anti-hype, pretended to wave the smoke away when his turn came. Meanwhile a rock band, perched on a platform near the roof, hammered away “Hold On, I’m Coming,” and the players ran out between two lines of black-clad, sequined dancers.

Jackson came, intending to make his statement, with a Bill Bradley button on his lapel. However, by the time he walked through the little, smoking Golden Gate, he was apolitical again, or at least button-less.

“No, I wasn’t told to take it off,” he said, smiling, “but there was some friendly persuasion. The Gore people ran in from somewhere, I don’t know where.”

Bradley, himself, was in the stands, perhaps to enjoy the game, perhaps to pick up a little face time with the California primary looming. Not that NBC was interested, since Bradley doesn’t appear in any of its sitcoms. It kept airing tight shots of Michael Jordan, sitting one row beneath Bradley and one seat over, too tight to show Bradley.

(Not that the NBA isn’t riding this Mike-is-back thing for all it’s worth, but they even had him come onto the court, as president of the team hosting next year’s All-Star Overproduction. The good thing about this was it called for Warrior owner Chris Cohan to present Jordan with a trophy--giving local fans a chance to boo the man who has run the Golden State franchise into the ground.)

So they played the mismatch and Carter fizzled and the gritty little East hung in there, as best it could.

Once, Van Gundy had a front line of the 6-6 Carter, 6-5 Jerry Stackhouse and 6-9 Mourning against O’Neal, Garnett and Duncan. It was no wonder Shaq and Duncan were co-MVPs; since Garnett had 24 points and 10 rebounds they could have been tri-MVPs.

“In the land of the trees,” sighed Carter later.

On the positive side for Laker fans, Kobe Bryant, who shot the ball 10 times in his first 11 touches in his first All-Star game, put up only five shots in his first 10 touches Sunday. Not exactly bashful, but better.

It wasn’t as good as the days when Magic Johnson had both teams caring about who won, but it was athletic and entertaining here and there. Rain or no rain, it was better than last year.