P.T. Barnum now has a new tent.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, the ambitious showman, will host the greatest show on hardwood, the NBA All-Star Game — and he will do so in the grandeur of the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium. There could be 100,000 fans there on Valentine’s Day, 2010. Paraphrasing the great American wordsmith Coolio, Cuban proclaimed: “Ain’t no party like a D-FW party.”
There are critics of Cuban out there. He’s juvenile. He yearns for the spotlight. He’s louder than Gilbert Gottfried being stung by a wasp.
But the guy who puts the “boy” in flamboyant and who thinks Texas-big has concocted what will surely be historic hysteria. This is gonna be cool.
“We’re going to make this the biggest event this country has ever seen,” Cuban said.
The NBA All-Star Game is the sport’s circus. It’s a carefree showcase of revelry, capped by an exhibition of high-flying, larger-than-life acts. Why not use the biggest tent available?
Credit must be shared. Mavericks president Terdema Ussery worked tirelessly to coordinate with the NFL’s Cowboys, who own the stadium, and with the NBA, which understood that, as commissioner David Stern said, “this is a pretty big step.”
And there they all were in Dallas last week for the grand announcement — Stern, Cuban and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, whose surgically smoothed skin always glows in the spotlight. Stern and Jones, of course, wore sharp business suits; Cuban, of course, wore a Mavericks polo shirt and blue jeans.
With Marv Albert as the emcee, confetti shot in the air, Mavericks dancers gyrated and a crowd cheered loudly and proudly, while Cuban soaked in the moment, his moment.
The 2010 game surely should be the biggest All-Star Game, noting that the largest crowd to ever attend one was 44,735, at the Houston Astrodome, in 1989.
“I don’t know what the largest crowd ever to see a basketball game in the United States is,” Stern told reporters Thursday. “I think it’s about 78,000. We’re going to top that. If Mark wants to push it to 100,000, God bless him.”
Indeed, this game will be a huge moneymaker for the brash billionaires. But one has to respect the thought of opening up a VIP-type event to the masses. Normally, season-ticket holders can’t even get seats at their cities’ All-Star Game, because tickets go to suits and celebrities. With this plan, there’s enough room for everyone, especially the average fan who always wanted to see LeBron and Kobe and Carmelo but never could. Basketball is a business, but it’s really the entertainment business, and Dallas’ P.T. Barnum of an owner gets it.
All Melo, all the time.
Nuggets all-star Carmelo Anthony will take viewers on a behind-the-scenes tour of his whirlwind life on his new show “Carmelo’s Way” on BET J. It shows footage of his offseason training, community events and a trip back home to Baltimore.
Anthony is also hosting an adult basketball academy next summer near his old school — Syracuse. It will run from Aug. 29-Sept. 1, 2009, at the Turning Stone Casino Resort in Verona, N.Y. (40 minutes from Syracuse). Some of Anthony’s old buddies, including Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, will be in attendance.
Anthony has two websites. To see footage from the show, go to ; to get more information about the academy, go to .
Nugget blogging.
NBA veteran Juwan Howard, back with the Nuggets, has decided to start blogging for . In his first entry, Howard wrote about his pride in presidential candidate Barack Obama: “In addition to his skills as a visionary leader, Sen. Obama will be the first U.S. president to bring a decent jump shot to the White House.”
Spotlight on …
Blazers C Greg Oden
It’s painful to already be making this comparison of Portland’s Oden — the top pick of the 2007 draft — and Portland’s Sam Bowie — the NBA bust infamously chosen second in 1984, right before Michael Jordan. But it’s painful to watch Oden in constant pain. He fought through a wrist injury in his lone season at Ohio State, then he missed his would-be NBA rookie season with a right knee injury. And this week, in his much-anticipated national television debut, the kid didn’t even score before injuring his foot just 13 minutes into his career. The center will miss two to four weeks while recovering.
Yes, it’s possible the guy just has bad luck, and he’ll recover nicely and have a Hakeem Olajuwon-like career (he was the top pick in 1984). But there are natural concerns that he is just a 7-foot injury waiting to happen.
“We’ve played how many games with him?” Portland’s Channing Frye told The Oregonian. “Half of one and some preseason. I have to be honest, we’re probably more used to playing with Joel (Przybilla) than we are with Greg at this point. And that’s nothing against Greg; he’s just been hurt and he’s had these fluke injuries. We’re going to deal with stuff. Injuries happen and Greg’s a great player, but goodness gracious, the sky isn’t falling.”
Immediately, though, the Trail Blazers find themselves in a bind, because their upcoming schedule features numerous Goliaths — Utah’s Carlos Boozer on Wednesday, followed by Houston’s Yao Ming, Minnesota’s Al Jefferson and Orlando’s Dwight Howard.
Benjamin Hochman, The Denver Post
