LOS ANGELES — Four. Of all the players here for the NBA’s All-Star festivities, the 24 players in Sunday’s game and 24 in Friday’s Rising Stars game, the four participants in the Slam Dunk Contest, the eight shooters in the 3-Point Contest and eight ball handlers in the Skills Challenge — 68 players altogether — just four represented this city’s two franchises, the Lakers and the Clippers.
Kyle Kuzma and Brandon Ingram of the Lakers were in the Rising Stars game. For the Clippers, Lou Williams was in the Skills Challenge, and Tobias Harris was in the 3-Point Contest. That’s it.
Never has an All-Star Game held in Los Angeles — there were five before this — been so light on LA presence, especially with a proud franchise like the Lakers here. In every Los Angeles All-Star Game before this one, there have been at least two Lakers, and in the 2011 game, Blake Griffin represented the Clippers. Three times, the MVP of the LA All-Star Game was a Laker (Jerry West in 1972, Shaquille O’Neal in 2004 and Kobe Bryant in 2011).
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There is something plain weird about being in Los Angeles for a celebration of the best of pro basketball and finding so few players from the LA franchises among the best. The only solace, perhaps, is that there are a handful of players with Los Angeles roots on hand.
“It is different,” O’Neal told Sporting News this weekend. “You got guys from LA, like (DeMar) DeRozan and Russell Westbrook, and I am sure they are going to try to put on a show. I know I would if I was them, and you have family members there, you have all your people there. It’s a great opportunity to make a name for themselves.
“There are going to be a lot of superstars here, and that was always my focus. I would come and see people, and say, ‘Oh s—, Jack (Nicholson is) here? Denzel (Washington is) here? Give me the ball. Let me go to work.’ Those guys should do that.”
But those guys don’t play for the two LA teams. Not yet, at least. If there was a highlight for the local fan base this weekend, it comes mostly from hopes and dreams, from free-agent fantasies.
True, there are many Southern California natives on hand — James Harden, Klay Thompson and Paul George among them. But fans don’t care much about that. The real attraction is that the Lakers have designs to sign those players in free agency. By moving Jordan Clarkson and Slam Dunk Contest runner-up Larry Nance Jr. at the trade deadline, the Lakers have cleared space to sign two max-level free agents in the coming summers.
Harden and Westbrook, both signed through 2022, are out. DeRozan is signed through 2020. But the Lakers will make a pitch to George this summer, after a year of rumors linking him to LA. Thompson will be a free agent in 2019, and there is a glimmer of hope around the league that he’ll be looking to bolt his third-wheel spot with the Warriors by then in search of a role as a headliner. (For what it's worth, Thompson has made it clear he'd like to remain a Warrior, and his father, Mychal, says Klay is "not looking to leave.")
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And there’s always the ultimate Laker wish: signing Cavs star LeBron James. It is unlikely James will leave Cleveland, but speculation around the league is that if he were to go anywhere, it would be to LA, where he owns a home.
During media availability on Saturday, as Westbrook and George were fielding questions, a group of nearby Lakers fans began chanting, “We want Paul!” When a reporter, pointing out the chant, told George, “There it is,” he smiled and said, “Yeah.” But he insisted that he has not made up his mind about what he’s going to do this summer.
“I don’t,” George said. “I know what I feel is best, but it’s a long ways until the end of the season.”
He knows, too, that whatever he says is going to be dissected, parsed and studied, the outside world trying to get a read on his future by analyzing his words.
“That’s the media,” George said. “They read a headline out of a whole interview. They see a headline, and immediately they jump to conclusions. It’s funny. At the end of the day, I know where my decision lands or what my decision is. That’s all that matters.”
Westbrook, George’s teammate in Oklahoma City, didn’t take too kindly to the chant by the locals. Westbrook signed an extension to remain with the Thunder last summer, and he will be instrumental in persuading George to pass on LA and stay in the Midwest.
When he heard the, “We want Paul!” chant, Westbrook shouted, “That’s out! Paul ain’t going nowhere. It’s over for that.”
If you’re an NBA fan here, that might have been the highlight of the weekend — a tug of war between Westbrook and fans over whether the Lakers could sell cap space to an upcoming free agent. That says something about the state of play for the teams. Never has LA been so underrepresented in an All-Star Game, even as the weekend has unfolded in this city.