Durant, Westbrook avoid elephant in room
Former teammates turn away questions
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 All-Star team, the former Oklahoma City Thunder teammates — until Durant left for Golden State last summer — will have to practice together today 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.”
Two questions later came this gem from Westbrook:
“Man, you see the new public school clothing? Crazy, dog. They got like the new Jordan hoodie. … It’s crazy man. A lot of new, great things at fashion week I’ve seen, man.
“What other designers? Gucci? The new Gucci stuff is dope. Good stuff, man.”
Later came another, more general question about playing with four members of Golden State on the West team, and Westbrook shot back:
“What’s your favorite fashion brand? What you like?”
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.”
At other times, Durant became philosophical, minimizing the significance of contract talks, trades or when stars change teams.
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.
DUNK CONTEST: Aaron Gordon is not giving any hints on what he’ll do for an All-Star dunk contest encore.
He just hopes it’s enough this time around.
The runner-up in last year’s All-Star dunk contest, Gordon is likely considered the favorite going into this year’s edition that will be held tonight.
The Orlando Magic forward lost a dunk-off a year ago to Minnesota’s Zach LaVine, who is injured and not defending his title.
“You’re going to have to wait until Saturday to see my ideas,” Gordon said. “It’s going to be innovative. It’s going to be technologically oriented. It’s going to be original and creative. You’ll see.”
Gordon will go up against DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers, Indiana’s Glenn Robinson III — and perhaps the wildcard in the field, Derrick Jones Jr. of the Phoenix Suns.
RISING STARS: Jamal Murray scored 36 points and Buddy Hield, a New Orleans Pelicans rookie, added 28 to the delight of the locals as the World squad beat the U.S. 150-141 on Friday night in the Rising Stars Challenge.
The game featuring top rookies and second-year pros is the main event on the first night of NBA All-Star weekend.
Murray, a Canadian and Denver Nuggets rookie out of Kentucky, went 9 of 14 on 3-pointers and was voted the game’s MVP. Hield, a Bahamian, was 11-of-22 shooting.
Latvian Kristaps Porzingis of the New York Knicks added 24 points.
Frank Kaminsky of the Charlotte Hornets scored 33 for the U.S. team and Minnestota’s Karl-Anthony Towns added 24, highlighted by his dunk of Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker’s half-court lob. BATHROOM BILL: The NBA has warned that Texas could be overlooked for future events because of a proposed “bathroom bill” targeting transgender people.
The Texas legislation is similar to a North Carolina law that prompted the league to move the All-Star Game out of that state.