NBA stars shine in L.A., but Carmelo Anthony isn’t staying

Let’s have a big welcome for the NBA from the home of the former two-time defending champion Lakers …

Oh, right, I guess they’re still the two-time defending champions.

The All-Star game, which lives here between tours, is back after seven years, in which time we paved paradise, or at least the lots next to the arena, and put up luxury hotels, to go with all our five-star restaurants and the nearby family theme park …

Beverly Hills.

Unlike 2004, when Los Angeles got the event and Beverly Hills got the participants, the players and some of the owners are downtown, which, of course, wasn’t there, at least in its present form.

Happily, as Cher’s father in “Clueless” says, everything here is 20 minutes away, including Rodeo Drive … without traffic (local joke).

It was that NBA that turned All-Star games into pageants, on the cutting edge of marketing then, as now … by necessity, since its logo might as well have shown Jerry West’s silhouette hopping from alligator to alligator.

Now it’s up to four days and growing, kicked off Thursday night when West was immortalized in bronze this time.

Now come games, exhibitions, charitable endeavors, demonstrations of harmony with the union, dire threats about contracting et al. to the union, and, of course, the NBA’s longstanding commitment to finding Carmelo Anthony a home.

Mercifully, Thursday’s trade deadline will end four (4) months of reported trades to New York, New Jersey, New York and, apparently for variety … here?

This just in!

Showing ESPN’s report wasn’t a myth, Melo and Al Harrington are coming to the Lakers in a four-creature deal for Ron Artest and Bigfoot!

No, not Andrew Bynum, even if he’s not moving around so well, the real Bigfoot!

Unfortunately for Denver, which can’t get a deal; Melo who’s stuck there; and ESPN, which keeps throwing it out as if someone tipped them that a third-rate burglary could lead to the White House, the Lakers aren’t trading Bynum.

Not that Bynum looks untouchable but a high-scoring, non-defending, 6-foot-7, 250-pound small forward who’d make $22 million may not be the way to go for the big, aging, slowing, non-defending Lakers.

That’s even before they start sorting through their alternatives …

Like Dwight Howard?

Let’s see, young, athletic, leads league in blocks, rebounds, engaging, big personality, comes from Orlando, can become a free agent in 2012 …

Yeah, he’d fit, like Shaquille O’Neal, just 50 to 75 pounds lighter, at least when Shaq arrived.

Suitors for Howard will include New York, which would have enough cap room to sign him and Chris Paul or Deron Williams, unless the Knicks take on a $22-million small forward who doesn’t fit its system, either.

The Lakers won’t have cap room but will be the only team that could offer a 7-foot starting center who would be 25 in a sign-and-trade …

Assuming they don’t misplace Bynum in the meantime.

It’s not that ESPN made this up, which began as a bright (?) idea among Lakers players.

With Kobe Bryant comparing the reports to a UFO sighting, we’re not sure whose idea it was.

It didn’t matter since no one in charge — not Jerry Buss, Jim Buss, Mitch Kupchak or Phil Jackson — liked it.

Having tossed it into a sea of denials and scorn, ESPN reprised after Lakers flops in Orlando and Charlotte that, quote, might revive the “dormant” deal.

After losing to Cleveland, the Lakers may be up to Melo, Nene and Chauncey Billups for Bynum, Bryant and Pau Gasol.

This is like the golden age of tabloids in New York when someone at a meeting trying to come up with one more angle after the sensational death of actor John Garfield threw out:

“John Garfield Still Dead.”

Melo still a Nugget?

Yes, it’s possible they’ll keep him and revisit this (pratfall) in June.

Life really does imitate art, or kindergarteners playing with crayons.

The Knicks aren’t budging, knowing they can sign Anthony in summer.

Yahoo just reported the Nets are back in with the draft picks Denver wants, even if Coach Avery Johnson just said rookie Derrick Favors, the centerpiece of their offer, isn’t ready and won’t be next season, either.

Not that it takes a diary of a mad subculture to make Lakers yearn for bygone eras these days.

So West’s statue went up in the nick of time with Lakers from all eras and parts of the country: Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Pat Riley, Kurt Rambis, Bill Sharman, Bill Bertka, Keith Erickson, Tom Hawkins, Pau Gasol … and Lakers foes such as Bill Russell … and Shaq, the Laker-turned-Celtic who got mixed cheers with a few boos.

In Jerry West style, he said the players’ presence meant more to him than the statue.

In the era of the 19-year-old rookie making more from Nike than the NBA before playing a game in it, there’s no one left like West, whose harsh background left him so humble, when his career was over, it was almost as if it never happened.

“If you know Jerry,” Johnson said with the neon lights from L.A. Live blinking over the Lakers pantheon, “you know he was thinking, ‘No one will come.’”

They came, they applauded, they teared up. It was too bad, it, or they, ever had to end.

mark.heisler@latimes.com