A Party With a Life of Its Own

By J.A. Adande

Feb. 10, 2004 12 AM PT

Get ready, Los Angeles. This is no time to act blase. You think just because this city has had the Super Bowl, the Oscars, the Grammys and whatever other big event you can think of, that it’s ever experienced anything like what’s in store with the NBA All-Stars in town this week?

Nope, never. And no, the 1983 NBA All-Star game at the Forum doesn’t count. That’s when it was still the All-Star game, not All-Star weekend. That was before the entire event became the Black Super Bowl.

Now, during All-Star weekend, the cultures of sports and hip-hip become one nation under a groove. It’s not just the top players in action on the court at Staples Center. It’s about rappers in concert. It’s about late-night traffic jams, long lines, short skirts and parties, parties, parties.

Back in ’83 the most notable side effect of the game was “a lot of bad suits,” said Magic Johnson.

“It’s amazing how much this game has grown since then to now,” Johnson said. “Back in the day, it was only a two-day event. Now it’s turned into six, seven days. It’s turned into a Carnival- or Mardi Gras-type situation.”

It has taken the place of Freaknik, the annual convergence of black college students in Atlanta that eventually was shut down in the late ‘90s because it overwhelmed the city. As an Atlanta preacher said when the All-Star game was in his town last year, All-Star weekend was “Freaknik times four.”

I’ve seen All-Star weekend heat up Minneapolis in the middle of winter and turn gray-suited, 9-to-5 Washington, D.C., into an all-night party town. But with L.A.’s weather and abundance of celebrities, the expectations for this weekend are as big as ... Shaquille O’Neal.

“There’s going to be a lot of superstars there,” O’Neal said. “It should turn out to be the best one ever.”

O’Neal’s face will be all over it, from the billboards around town promoting TNT’s coverage, to the multiple parties using his name. You’ll see plenty of Magic’s smile as well, with a statue unveiling at Staples Center on Wednesday and an American Express tribute featuring everyone from his old Laker teammates to Earth, Wind & Fire on Thursday night.

As usual, there will be parties presented by players, performers and sponsors. Sometimes there will be unusual combinations of all of the above, such as the event held by Laker guard Gary Payton, singer R. Kelly and Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban, or the comedy show with hosts Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Mike Epps and a guest appearance by Michael Jordan.

There’s a Roc-a-Fella Records party, a GQ party and something called the French Maid Vault party.

And after handing out 10,000 boxes of food to needy families on Friday, the players’ association will have its annual party, which has become the weekend’s signature event, Saturday night. Snoop Dogg will reprise his headliner performance from the 2001 party, and former President Clinton is expected to repeat his appearance at last year’s event.

Any city can have All-Star parties. Only L.A. can have one at the Playboy mansion.

Los Angeles deserves a little bit of the credit for the All-Star game’s current size. When Marvin Gaye broke out his soulful national anthem before the 1983 game, it helped fuse the event with pop culture. In Denver the next year, the NBA added the dunk contest and other competitions and spread them over two days. By the 1990s, All-Star weekend had become one of the hottest social stops on the national circuit.

“To me, All-Star weekend is a gathering of basketball and hip-hop lovers across the county,” said Felipe Darrell, a Los Angeles party promoter whose Icon Entertainment will put on 12 events this week. “Everybody’s a fan of the game, but it’s turned into Urban America Party Central. People from all across the country gather who love the game.

“Basketball is a theme for people, especially African Americans, to get together. Basketball is a sport where it’s predominantly populated by African Americans. The players have a lot of influence on the party scene in each of these towns. It’s turned into a great event. The Super Bowl is probably the biggest event across the country. But for black Americans, All-Star is definitely it.”

Said New York Knick guard Stephon Marbury, who played in his second All-Star game last year: “The thing that makes it so good is all of the fans, the camaraderie, people coming together. There are stars ... just one big party.”

Why not the actual Super Bowl itself? It’s too much of the expense-account set, too influenced by the authoritarian NFL.

“The Super Bowl is very corporate,” said Cary Mitchell, a clothier who sells many of the suits you see on NBA draft night. “You see a small percentage of African Americans. The NBA is totally different.”

The NBA’s championship doesn’t make for an ideal party destination because the Finals sites aren’t known until the participants are determined, making it impossible to book travel and plan events in advance.

So why not converge on the NCAA basketball tournament’s Final Four? Please.

Final Four sites are filled with guys in sweatsuits hanging around hotel lobbies for the concurrent coaches’ convention, balding alumni clinging to the good old memories at State U. and the “winners” of a lottery held a year in advance to determine who gets to watch three basketball games from the upper reaches of a domed stadium. The fun-loving students make up a tiny percentage of the crowds, and half of them leave with the two losing teams in Saturday’s semifinals.

One other thing: The college players don’t have huge contracts. That sure isn’t the case at All-Star weekend.

“I think you have so many young talented, multimillionaires that are bachelors,” Darrell said. “It makes it attractive to tons and tons of women who can afford to take a few days and spend some time where they can mingle with all these celebrities.”

In a sense, the weekend’s appeal is the same for the players as it is for the fans: It’s a chance to hang with the All-Stars.

“I enjoyed the camaraderie that we had with all the guys,” said Patrick Ewing, an 11-time All-Star during his career. “It gave us a chance to talk trash.”

“It’s cool just to spend time with the guys,” said Charles Barkley, who also made the All-Star team 11 times. “The rest of the guys, I didn’t know them that well. The first time you get to play with them, it’s like, ‘Wow. Twenty-four of the best basketball players in the world are here.’ ”

Their moments for quiet conversation are few. From the moment they exit the hotel elevator and step into the lobby, they’re surrounded by frenzied fans. There are people trying to get autographs. There are people trying to get into the clubs, then trying to gain access to the VIP lounge.

At the 1998 All-Star game in New York, a party promoted by using Gary Payton’s name was so crowded that Payton himself couldn’t get in.

Last year the streets of downtown Atlanta became so congested that some Saturday night event participants abandoned their vehicles and walked from the hotel to Philips Arena.

Toronto Raptor star Vince Carter, the 2000 dunk winner, didn’t participate last year and didn’t even bother to attend. When his mother and cousin went to watch, Carter stayed behind and found a rare moment of calm in the players’ hotel lobby.

The weekend is “a lot of chaos, a little too much for me,” said Carter, the leading vote-getter for this year’s game. “I enjoy the festivities and all the wonderful people that come around, but it’s a little too much for me, man. There’s just so much going on. I like to be away, stay to myself a little bit. I don’t mind going to parties and being a part of it, but there’s so much going on where you kind of get lost in the storm sometimes.”

Mitchell says the scene became more hectic after the NBA made the rookie game a part of the weekend in 1994.

“They bring a whole different environment to All-Star weekend,” Mitchell said.

The young players have larger entourages, need more hotel rooms and ask for more tickets, he said. The dress code has gone from Cary Mitchell’s suits to the Mitchell & Ness throwback jersey catalog. When it came time to take orders for this year’s game, Mitchell received not one suit request.

Whatever the attire, partygoers will be out in full force. Darrell and his Icon partner Greg Lites have done promotions for 16 years and he said there had never been a frenzy like this in Los Angeles.

“And we’ve had Super Bowls here,” Darrell said.

“It still wasn’t the same amount of hype that we’re receiving right now with the NBA All-Stars. This is, for us, bigger than the Grammys, Soul Train [awards], Vibe, BET, the Oscars, whatever.”

And, according to well-placed sources, there’s even going to be a basketball game Sunday.

J.A. Adande can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/Adande.