by Aggrey Sam

I don’t normally do All-Star. I especially don’t normally do All-Star parties. And I haven’t done video games, at least not seriously, in about a decade. But now that I live in New Orleans, I figured that I might as well enjoy NBA All-Star weekend. After working the PeacePlayers International (y’all should already know I recently relocated to the N.O. to take a gig with them) booth at NBA Jam Session earlier in the day, I hit up the EA Sports party at a downtown spot called Republic. Open bar, free food (catered by New Orleans restaurant K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen; I think it’s one of TV chef’s Paul Prudhomme’s spots), minimal groupie action and a decent crowd/atmosphere equaled a good time for all who attended.

As I said earlier, I’m not too into video games, but the tournament was fun, mostly because of the emcee, Hannibal who does the Rucker games. The first matchup was Caron Butler against Brandon Roy, which was won by Roy. Next up was Kevin Durant vs. Gerald Green, with KD victorious. LaMarcus Aldridge took down Deron Williams after that, followed by Tony Parker (with Eva Longoria in tow, or vice versa) defeating Rudy Gay. The semis had LaMarcus beating Brandon in the battle of the Blazers and TP surprising the youngster Durant.

In somewhat of an upset, Parker ended up beating LA in the NBA Live 08 chip. I guess the Euros are catching up to Americans in the virtual world, too. Seriously, this cat is living the dream. You just know the other guys have been playing Live and its various incarnations since, like most American kids, since they were barely walking, all the way through college (so that excludes Gerald) and most likely even now. Parker, the oldest of the players, the only foreigner (not that the French are truly that much more cultured) and the only married man (as far as I know; to a fellow celeb at that), ends up taking it all. Are real championships not enough for him? If I planned to be at next year’s ASG, I’d get on my Free Yuta Tabuse! campaign right now, to ensure TP doesn’t keep up this dominant lifestyle because if Yuta ever makes it back to the League, my money’s on him. Shout out to Jen Riley from EA Sports, my man Tim Fuller at Octagon, PPI’s Noam Fishman and Iman El. Maybe not what you were looking for from the first All-Star ‘08 post, but my real fun is about to begin at Harrah’s in a few.