NBA best hoping to spread sunshine

February 14, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

It’s been a gloomy season for basketball fans in Phoenix.

PHOENIX (AP) — For one weekend, basketball promises to be fun again in Phoenix.

The NBA’s best are in town for Sunday’s All-Star game, bringing the spectacle of endless entertainment, lots of laughs and plenty of points.

Just like the Suns used to provide.

Now, with the hometown team mired in so much misery that its own All-Star starter, Amare Stoudemire, is perhaps days away from a ticket out of town, it’s up to Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James and the other high-scoring showmen to bring hoops happiness back to the Valley of the Sun.

O’Neal was chosen to 14 straight All-Star games before missing last year during an injury-plagued season. Few players match his level of popularity with fans and fellow players.

“I’m a very lucky player because I went through three different eras of the All-Star game,” O’Neal said. “I went through the Mike era, where it was Mike [Jordan] and [Charles] Barkley and all those guys. And I went through the my era, where it was me all the time and Kobe, and now it’s the Kobe-LeBron, D-Wade era, Dwight Howard eras. So I’ve been lucky enough to go through all three of those transitions.”

Jordan had a role to start the weekend, when the finalists for this year’s Basketball Hall of Fame class were announced on Friday. The end was left for the players who have inherited his mantle as the best in the sport.

Bryant and James have dominated recent All-Star games, combining for the last three MVP awards.

James said the first three quarters are for fun, but, “the fourth quarter, that’s when we all really start to play hard. The fourth quarter is buckle-down time.

“It’s fun to go out there and compete,” James said. “I love playing against the best in the world and on this stage, it’s the best 24 guys in the world. I kind of rise to that occasion.”

Bryant won his second trophy two years ago in Las Vegas, but will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing All-Star weekend in New Orleans last year, when he could barely play because of a torn ligament in his right pinkie.

James has been even better — the best scorer ever in All-Star play. His 27-point performance last year in the East’s 134-128 victory raised his average through four appearances to 24.3 points, the highest among players who have played in that many games. He was MVP of that game, two years after he won it for leading a huge East rally in Houston.

“He’s a special talent. There’s obviously All-Stars and they’re elite players, and there’s those guys that are even a step above that,” Cleveland coach Mike Brown said. “And when you start talking about those guys, you’re talking about Kobe, and Tim [Duncan] and Michael and Magic and Bird, and ’Bron obviously fits in that category.”

A Bryant-James duel down the stretch would be the perfect ending, except James may have an obstacle in the form of his coach, who is leading the East and may prefer his franchise player to save his strength for the real games.

“He may have a tough time getting MVP because I don’t know if you can get MVP playing more than three minutes,” Brown joked. “We’ll have to see, that honor may go to Kevin Garnett. Playing 48 minutes, you can put up big numbers.”