Awkward start to NBA all-star weekend for Westbrook, Durant

NEW ORLEANS Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant had plenty to say at their first All-Star appearance. Just not about one another. Reunited on the Western Conference AllStar team, the former Oklahoma City Thunder teammates — until Durant left for Golden State last summer — will have to practice together on Saturday and play together on Sunday.

If either of them expects it to be awkward — particularly after the way they jawed at one another in a recent regular season game — they weren’t discussing it on Friday.

Westbrook smirked and responded to questions about any potential awkward interaction with Durant and or the other Warriors with thoughts on New York City’s Fashion Week.

“Man, you know what? Fashion week has been great. You seen fashion week? You been paying attention to fashion week?” Westbrook responded to a question about Durant. “Man. There’s a lot of great-looking things at fashion week, man. I’m looking forward to new collections. It’s been good, man.”

For his part, Durant was curt, or vague or sometimes critical of the media for obsessing over things that aren’t important, not to him anyway.

Durant used a total of five words to respond to his first question about the opportunity to play with Westbrook again: “I’m excited to be here.” Later, Durant said more directly, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Ultimately, which five players are on the court at any given time will be up to West coach Steve Kerr .

So far, Kerr has been coy about how he’ll handle his rotations.

Of course, the coach used to work in TV, so he knows as well as anyone how to maintain intrigue.

“The only thing I want is for our players to enjoy the weekend,” Kerr said. “It’s a hectic weekend for all of them. It’s a great honour to be here. I want everybody to be comfortable and happy. This should be an enjoyable time. So I don’t want anybody to feel uncomfortable.