Frigid Utah welcomes NBA All-Star Weekend with warm hospitality

Those who braved the freezing temperatures to trek to Utah for NBA All-Star Weekend have been rewarded with clear skies, beautiful views of the snow-capped Wasatch Mountains and a basketball-crazed city that has waited three decades for its turn to host.

In 1993, the last time the NBA’s midseason showcase convened in Salt Lake City, the Utah Jazz were a steady powerhouse thanks to longtime owner Larry H. Miller, no-nonsense coach Jerry Sloan and the Hall of Fame duo of John Stockton and Karl Malone. These days, Utah’s CEO Danny Ainge is a well-known NBA lifer, but many of the franchise’s other key figures have arrived since Qualtrics founder Ryan Smith purchased the Jazz in 2020.

Last summer, Smith, a mid-40s tech billionaire who favors all-black outfits topped with a backward hat, hired rookie coach Will Hardy and executed a roster overhaul by sending out Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell in trades while acquiring Lauri Markkanen, a first-time all-star forward who has stepped into the void. As such, the weekend has felt like a grand introduction rather than simply a reunion of basketball royalty.

“This is really an important moment for our state to shine,” Smith said, hailing Salt Lake City’s standing as one of the country’s 10 fastest-growing markets and its booming “Silicon Slopes” high-tech industry. “It’s been 30 years. There’s probably 120,000 people coming into town, and we’re ready for it.”

Next year, the All-Star Weekend crowd will be heading to Indianapolis.

In Utah, the focus on hospitality seems intentional, given some of the negative impressions that have dogged the state. In 2019, Russell Westbrook accused a Jazz fan of making “racial” comments toward him during a game, and Mitchell told the website Andscape that his offseason move to Cleveland was “comforting” after years of “draining” criticism from some fans over his comments about the racial climate in Utah, where more than 77 percent of residents are White.

Meanwhile, Utah’s state legislature passed a bill last year that banned transgender students from competing in girls sports, raising questions about whether the NBA would relocate this weekend’s festivities. Ultimately, Commissioner Adam Silver, who had previously moved the 2017 All-Star Weekend out of Charlotte in response to a North Carolina bathroom bill, said that Salt Lake City would remain as host because the NBA didn’t “want to be in a position where we’re chased from state to state around the country.”

By the frenzied standards of All-Star Weekend, this year’s edition has gotten off to a sleepier start than usual, perhaps because of the frigid temperatures. A comedown was inevitable after the NBA pulled no punches with its 75th anniversary celebration in Cleveland last year, and a wave of injuries has dimmed the star power.

Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Zion Williamson have all been ruled out for Sunday’s showcase, and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, DeMar DeRozan and Jaylen Brown are all nursing various maladies. Even the slam dunk contest endured a notable defection when highflying rookie Shaedon Sharpe withdrew, forcing the NBA to assemble an underwhelming field that includes Mac McClung, who has spent the entire season in the G League.

Nevertheless, visitors can walk down John Stockton Drive next to the Vivint Arena, where statues of the NBA’s all-time assist leader and Malone, his top target, stand sentry. Inside, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame announced that the finalists for its 2023 class include Gregg Popovich, Dwyane Wade, Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol and Tony Parker.

Purple-and-teal throwback jackets from the 1993 showcase dot various pop-up shops, and hundreds of fans queued up Friday to meet Markkanen at the family-friendly NBA Crossover experience inside the downtown Convention Center. A few blocks south, teens took photos next to a life-size figurine of Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant that was fully encased in an ice block. Nike’s Jordan Brand even built a faux pizza parlor in honor of Michael Jordan’s famous “Flu Game” in the 1997 Finals against the Jazz, when the Chicago Bulls legend purportedly suffered from food poisoning after eating a tainted Pizza Hut pie.

At the annual Tech Summit, where Metta World Peace and Meta executives coexisted in proximity, Silver greeted a standing-room-only crowd of power brokers, including league officials, team executives and super agents. Washington Wizards Owner Ted Leonsis joined a panel to discuss the future of streaming options, while Silver showed off a new immersive technology that would allow fans to scan themselves with a cellphone and put themselves into a live-action game in place of any player.

During the demonstration, host Ahmad Rashad, donning a purple sweater, replaced Talen Horton-Tucker as the Jazz guard went coast to coast for a transition dunk. Other broadcast innovations include being able to cycle through various languages, graphical interfaces and backgrounds, so fans in Utah could watch the Jazz play in front of mountains rather than the typical crowd shots.

Silver also welcomed Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Doncic onstage to reveal Luk.AI, his artificial-intelligence alter ego.

“I want to be one of the first guys to do this version of myself,” Doncic said. “It’s going to help with interacting with fans. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

While the NBA’s intelligentsia tried to imagine what the league’s media landscape might look like in 10 years, some of basketball’s most prominent voices expressed concern over the ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations. The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have twice extended the deadline to reach agreement on a CBA extension. The two sides now have until March 31 to negotiate an extension or else either side could opt out of the current deal this summer.

The NBA’s annual revenue topped $10 billion for the first time last season, representing a strong rebound from the pandemic. But the league continues to battle several thorny issues, including the strategic resting of star players, which has frustrated fans and television partners alike, and a dramatic rise in trade requests. Indeed, James Harden, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant all asked for, and received, trades by the Brooklyn Nets over the past 12 months.

“It’s bad for the NBA,” TNT commentator Charles Barkley said. “You can’t take all my money and say you want a divorce. I’m pretty sure that’s the next thing that’s going to come out of the CBA. There’s no doubt in my mind that these guys are going to get locked out. These owners, you can’t take all their money and treat these owners and fans like crap. What these players are starting to do with load management and taking the money and demanding to be traded, the owners aren’t going to stand for this.”

Before the NBA proceeds with its labor negotiations or delves further into alternate realities, it will host its annual skills challenge, three-point contest and slam dunk contest on Saturday. Antetokounmpo and his two brothers are scheduled to compete in the skills challenge against a team composed of Jazz players and a team of rookies led by No. 1 overall pick Paolo Banchero. Five all-stars, including Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard, will view for the three-point crown, while McClung will dunk against Kenyon Martin Jr., Trey Murphy III and Jericho Sims.

LeBron James will be honored Sunday for becoming the NBA’s all-time scoring leader earlier this month. The Los Angeles Lakers star and Antetokounmpo will also serve as all-star captains and pick their teams in a televised pregame draft. Courtside tickets for Sunday’s game were listed for nearly $10,000 a piece on a secondary site, and Smith estimated that the festivities could have a $250 million impact locally.

“What I want to show kids is that it’s 100 percent possible to do great things in Utah,” Smith said. “Utah is not going to get in the way.”