Some Rookie Soar Points and Sophomore High Jinks

The Rookie Challenge was equal parts pickup game and dunk contest, kicking off the NBA’s All-Star weekend with an eye-popping celebration of youth that delighted a sellout crowd of 19,662 in Staples Center that didn’t fight the Friday freeway traffic to see an exhibition of defense.

LeBron James knew what the fans craved, so he gathered his rookie teammates and sophomore opponents around him at center court with about five minutes left in a one-sided game and declared the game over and the dunking contest on.

Until then the players had at least made a show of staying near each other as they drove for dunks and spinning layups or cast off for three-point shots. But in the closing moments of the sophomores’ 142-118 victory, the defenses rested and the dunkers soared.

Doug Collins, who coached the rookies, would say later that he turned to assistant A.C. Green, the former Laker forward, and asked, “Is this really what the fans want to see? I hope the fans enjoyed it.”

Rest assured, they did.

James tossed the ball off the backboard and dunked, then dunked off a lob pass from Denver’s Carmelo Anthony, then threw down a driving reverse dunk that brought the fans to their feet.

At the other end, Carlos Boozer, James’ Cleveland Cavalier teammate, took a lob pass from Seattle’s Ronald Murray and dunked, then Phoenix’s Amare Stoudemire dunked off another lob from Murray, then Tayshaun Prince of Detroit abandoned his customary station on the perimeter and slammed.

And on it went.

By game’s end, the teams had combined for 48 dunks -- 24 apiece. James had 33 points on 15-for-26 shooting for the rookies, but Stoudemire set a Rookie Challenge record with 36 points on 17-for-23 shooting and also took 11 rebounds to earn most-valuable-player honors for the sophomores.

Marko Jaric and Chris Kaman, two Clippers, had 12 and eight points for the sophomores and rookies, respectively. Kaman’s coast-to-coast drive and dunk certainly qualified as the biggest local highlight.

But this game wasn’t about numbers on a sheet of paper. It was about having fun, and this generation of players showed the game is in good hands in that regard.

“It was all about the fans,” said James, who shed his gold-colored sneakers and chucked them into the crowd after the final buzzer. “Once the game got out of hand, I went to all the players and said, ‘Let’s give the crowd what they came for.’ ”

Said Boozer: “It seemed like the whole game there was no defense.”

That was the plan from the start, according to Michael Cooper, a former Laker player and current coach of the WNBA’s Sparks who coached the sophomores.

“Really, no defense was played and that was by design,” Cooper said. “Coach Collins and I agreed to see how many points we could score. I was amazed.”

And to think, the teams played two college-style 20-minute halves rather than the NBA’s standard four 12-minute quarters. Otherwise the flood of points would have been even greater.

The tone for this running and dunking exhibition was set early, well before James leaped to cradle a 35-foot scoop pass from Chicago’s Kirk Hinrich in his right hand and dunked. Before the game, Austin Pawelka, an 11-year-old from Denver, introduced the players in a bellowing voice that filled Staples Center.

The game then began and quickly turned into the LeBron and ‘Melo Show, with the childhood friends setting up each other for dunks. The game turned in the favor of the sophomores when James and Anthony went to the bench midway through the first half. The arena grew quiet as the rookie reserves failed to keep pace.

The ultimate statement on the direction the game would soon take came when Miami’s Udonis Haslem mistimed his jump as he leaped for a lob pass. He gathered himself upon touchdown, leaped again and dropped in a layup ... and the fans booed Haslem for not dunking.

“It was just fun out there,” Anthony said. “Nobody was serious, nobody got hurt and that was the big thing.”