The Raptors' All-Star Legacy

It's that time of year when Adam Sandler sits next to that guy from King of Queens to watch an utterly inconsequential game of basketball. Where a simpering David Stern looks over his empire of tall men who wear the contents of a west African cave on their ears while lesser stars try to impress them with dunks. It's All-Star Weekend and the Raptors have history here.

With a week until their next game and their guts full of Kidd-less New Jersey Nets' innards, the Raps have time to reflect before moving on with the season. And I'll help jog their memories, but first I want to get distracted by the Nets game.

Congratulations to Jay Triano for becoming the first Canadian to coach a regular season NBA game. He should feel better than I used to when my dad asked me to hold the steering wheel while he reached for his wallet, but it's essentially the same principal. Even the outcomes are similar: I would get a sense of the road and a fiver from dad whereas Triano got a 109-91 win over a team that showed what happens when you remove a hall-of-fame point guard from the laziest consortium of athletes in the league.

That hall-of-fame point guard is Jason Kidd, not Marcus Williams, and Kidd's trade to the Mavericks for Devin Harris, Jerry Stackhouse, DeSagana Diop, Devean George, Maurice Ager, $3 million and two first-round draft picks is on hold thanks to George alone. Devean must have paid attention at Augsburg College, because somehow he convinced Mark Cuban to give him a no-trade clause when he signed with the Mavs this off-season. This ensures George a place in history and perpetual hostility with his current teammates and Kidd. I'm sure the teams will find a way around this, but for now it's nice to know that Kidd can't just punch a woman in the face and make everything work.

ALL-STAR MEMORIES

2000 - Vince Carter (starter) - 12 points in 28 minutes. Carter also won the 2000 Slam Dunk contest. Here are the highlights which someone assembled over R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" and then posted on youtube. If you can get past the music it really was one of the top three sickest collections of dunks ever displayed. And he didn't take a Nate-Robinson hour to complete them, most were one-and-dones.

2001 - Carter (starter) - 16 points in 24 minutes; AND
Antonio Davis (starter) - eight points and nine rebounds in 20 minutes. The NBA would rather forget this, but, yeah, Antonio Davis started an All-Star game (because Alonzo Mourning was out with kidney disease).

2002 - Carter was the leading vote-getter for the entire NBA but didn't play due to a marginally overcut fingernail.

2003 - Carter - nine points in 25 minutes. Even though Carter was voted into the game, in an atypical gesture of class, he gave up his starting spot to Michael Jordan, who made his final All-Star appearance (Jordan shot 9-27 in that game).

2004 - Carter (starter) - 11 points in 16 minutes. This was also the year that Jamal Magloire was selected as an All-Star, scoring 19 points.

2005 - Carter...as a member of the New Jersey Nets, after playing 20 games with the Raptors.

2006 - Bosh - eight points and eight rebounds in 16 minutes. A lovely first appearance for CB4.

2007 - Bosh (starter) - 11 points and seven rebounds in 22 minutes - The day before this game I bet a friend that Bosh would score in double-digits. CB4 was sitting on the bench with four points going into the fourth, but with 6:30 left in the game he checks back in. In a flurry of lay-ins and free throws Bosh goes on to score seven additional points - the final two coming on a dunk with 18 seconds left in the game - to secure my five dollars. The East lost 153-132.