The First 24 Hours: NBA All-Star Weekend Photos

Hitting up the All-Star Weekend is a double-edged sword. You constantly work, spend late nights in media rooms and feel like a single wildebeest in a stampede of thousands at the media-infested player availabilities. But in the end, you’re hanging around the 24 or so best basketball players in the world. It’s one thing to hit up a credentialed Knicks game or Celtics game. It’s another level to see the game’s biggest stars together. For one, it gives you perspective.

An example: my eyes received confirmation today that Kevin Durant is taller than both Blake Griffin and Kevin Love, but Marc Gasol towers over all of them. And I saw Carmelo Anthony make five of six from half-court during practice today in one of those “This isn’t fair that it’s so easy for him” moments. It’s been one long party (and I’m not even talking about the actual parties). Everyone is in a festive mood. Even when LeBron refused to do shout-outs to his overseas fans, everyone quickly forgot about it 15 seconds later.

One-on-one time with the stars is out of the question with literally hundreds of media folks. But pictures aren’t.

Here are photos from the first 24 hours or so of the 2012 All-Star Weekend in Orlando.

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