All-Star Break Is More Like All-Star Fake

Peter May, writing in the Boston Globe, on the commercialism of NBA All-Star weekend:

“It’s not about basketball. It’s about sponsors and marketing and globalization and excess. Try finding a basketball fan in Madison Square Garden [on the weekend].

“The entire Saturday program is a joke. The actual game has turned into a colossal bore.

“The highlight of the entire weekend is going to be Jayson Williams’ reflections on modern society, which, basically, can be gotten any time the Nets are in your town.”

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Trivia time: How many former UCLA and USC head football coaches became head coaches in the NFL?

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Wake up, sleepwalkers! Can you identify the Debrecen Dynamites, Veszprem Fireballs, Nagykanizsa Ants, Sopron Indians, and the oddly named Szentendre Sleepwalkers?

Those are are some of the names of baseball and softball teams in Hungary, where the sport is flourishing.

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Scheduling goof: Orlando Magic Coach Chuck Daly on playing back-to-back games at Detroit and Houston:

“I asked the league office if they knew anything about geography. Did they not know where Texas was?”

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Vicious! Mattel reached a five-year licensing agreement with the NBA, giving the toy maker worldwide rights to all the league’s toys and games.

Said Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune: “Be the first kid on your block to get the Chris Webber Cellblock action figure (sport utility vehicle with marijuana sold separately).”

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NBA snobbery: Referee Joey Crawford took the time to explain a call disputed by New York Knick trainer Mike Saunders in a recent game.

Then Crawford admonished him, saying, “That’s why you tape ankles and we make the calls.”

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Zzzzz: Sacramento King center Michael Stewart, a rookie from California, discussing his effort to counter the midseason “wall” that NBA rookies are known to hit:

“I’ve been sleeping a lot at night, sleeping before games and sleeping during the game.”

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FYI: The William E. Simon & Sons U.S. Squash championships will be held in Los Angeles Feb. 13-16 at five downtown sites, including an all-glass court at Seventh Market Place.

If you’re not familiar with squash, it was played on the Titanic. Also the name was derived from the sound made when the ball strikes the wall. Squash, not squish.

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Trivia answer: Five: UCLA--Tommy Prothro and Dick Vermeil; USC--Elmer “Gloomy Gus” Henderson, John McKay and John Robinson.

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And finally: Ron Borges in the Boston Globe: “Here’s how quickly it can all change. People were all talking about the Packers as a possible dynasty.

“One Super Bowl loss later and director of football operations Ron Wolf said: ‘We’re a one-year wonder. Now this will stop all this idiotic talk about a dynasty. We just got our guts kicked out.’ ”