The Morning After… it’s good to be here

By Sam Rubenstein

For all of our All-Star 2008 coverage, click here.

Good morning New Orleans! Note to bosses: this is supposed to be a free internet connection we have in the rooms. That wasn’t happening. You’re on the hook for $15 today. I’m way beyond giving a f–k.

Yesterday as Lang, Khalid, and myself sat around at one of our “bonus stops” on the journey down here, we were discussing how much whining we could get away with. Lang made the point that we are lucky to be here, we get to have a lot of fun for free, so what’s some inconveniences in the grand scheme of things? After wallowing in self-pity for a while… I agree.

I mean nine hours ago, I was at the bar at the Jordan party next to a quiet young man named Rajon Rondo, just taking in the scene. I turn around, and in line behind me was Kevin Durant, Brandon Roy, and Rudy Gay. The women there were not unattractive. The sightings list is too long to get into at this time. Lang has notes that he’ll get around to writing about later on, but right now him and Ben and Aggrey Sam are attending a Peace Players event for work.

We did it quasi-big last night, hitting a few parties, ending a long day at 3 A.M.

One funny observation, I was standing near the Michael Jordan V.I.P. area of his party. Believe it or not, the guy has heavy security. Charles Oakley came in, and tried to get into that V.I.P. area, and a security team member jokingly tried to stop him. The death stare he received was awesome.

As far as the complaining goes… SERENITY NOW! I just called the baggage information number to track down lost luggage. Hope you didn’t have anything valuable in yours, Khalid.

I wish I could talk about some basketball from yesterday, but all I saw was the ESPNnews highlights. The closest I came to anything basketball-related was witnessing up close the shape of Steve Stoute’s head. I was supposed to interview someone who played in the celebrity game for the next issue of SLAM, but we missed that game, as well as the game after that.

Okay… this is my complaint post. Gotta take care of some business. More thorough party report and other stuff later.