SALT LAKE CITY — I was fortunate enough to be credentialed for the entire 2023 All-Star Weekend thanks to USA Today’s Sports Media Group.
I stayed in Salt Lake City, Utah, for roughly five days and was granted access to all of the events and media availabilities. I attended Friday’s Rising Stars contest, Saturday’s multiple events headlined by the Dunk Contest and Sunday’s All-Star game.
In terms of work, I was there mainly to focus on the three Oklahoma City Thunder representatives, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey and Jalen Williams. The former was making his first All-Star appearance. The latter two were participating in the Rising Stars challenge.
Being credentialed for All-Star weekend was one of my career highlights.
All-Star weekend celebrated the unofficial halfway mark of the regular season where only the best players in the league are invited. The fact that the Thunder had three representatives is a hugely positive sign of where the young core is going.
Because of that, I want to share my experience with the readers on what it was like covering the All-Star extravaganza from a first-hand perspective.
I have broken it down by days and am listing events in chronological order.
Thursday, Feb. 16
- After covering the previous night’s Thunder game against the Houston Rockets, I went to bed at 1 a.m. CT and woke up at 5 a.m. CT to catch an 8 a.m. CT flight.
- I was on the same flight with “Locked On’s” Rylan Stiles, The Athletic’s and Down To Dunk’s Andrew Schlecht. Thunder assistant coach Dave Bliss was also on the flight as well as Rockets forward and Dunk Contest participant KJ Martin.
- I also saw Aleksej Pokusevski at the OKC airport.
- Arrived in Salt Lake City at 11 a.m. MT. Took a media bus to the media hotel to check in. Immediately went to pick up my credential and food vouchers at a second hotel location.
- I then went to the NBA Crossover event at the Salt Palace Convention Center and spent most of the afternoon there as it was only open for media and Utah Jazz season ticket holders.
- I used my food vouchers to eat and proceeded to play several of the games offered there. I was impressed with the creativity involved in the games as you can only do so much with basketballs and a hoop.
- My favorite game was Connect Four with basketballs instead of black and red chips. (I went 5-0 against Black Sports Online’s Daniel Bell).
- Guess I’m really good at basketball Connect Four ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
- Other games included a pop-a-shot station, claw machines, NBA 2K, a passing-in-holes drill, a floater drill with the courts constantly moving up and down and trying to make a basket on a hoop that nearly touched the ceiling of the building.
- There were also photo stands that let you take photos with the Larry O’Brien trophy and several NBA awards.
- After that, I went to Foot Locker with Rylan Stiles and Daniel Bell to cover an impromptu Josh Giddey’s meet-and-greet where he signed autographs for fans.
Friday, Feb. 17
- A lot of the OKC beat — Joe Mussatto, Andrew Schlecht, Rylan Stiles and I went to the Rising Stars practice at 7 a.m. MT.
- The Rising Stars practice was held at the Jon M. Huntsman Center, where the Utah Utes play their home games.
- Rising Stars media availability was held and I mostly stuck with Giddey and Jalen Williams, who both spoke simultaneously. Afterward, I wandered a bit and popped into different players media availabilities.
- Jabari Smith Jr. was asked about reportedly being frustrated when the Thunder passed on him in the 2022 NBA draft. He refused to comment.
- I went to watch another Rising Stars practice, which was held after media availabilities concluded. While watching I worked on tweeting out quotes and clips from what Giddey and Williams said and wrote a recap.
- I boarded the media bus and returned to the media hotel, where I stayed until the media bus returned later in the afternoon to drive to Vivint Arena for the Rising Stars games.
- I arrived at Vivint Arena and ate concession food with Rylan Stiles and Forbes’ Nick Crain and proceeded to watch the Rising Stars competition, in which Giddey’s and Williams’ team, Team Joakim Noah, lost to Team Pau Gasol in the final.
- I immediately ran from where I was sitting — the sixth level of the arena — down to the event floor to speak with Giddey and Williams following the loss.
- Both Thunder players talked simultaneously.
- Afterward, I worked on tweeting quotes and clips along with writing a recap of the event.
- I walked back to the media hotel and attended the media party until 1 a.m. MT, where I chatted with mostly OKC people.
Saturday, Feb. 18
- With no Thunder players participating in Saturday’s events — despite Isaiah Joe making a strong case for the 3-point contest — the only real work I needed to do was go to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s All-Star media availability.
- I rode the media bus to the practice facility — which was the Utah Utes’ home arena — and watched the All-Stars practice.
- The event was open to the public, which means concession stands were open for me to use my voucher.
- I sat with mostly OKC people, which included Joe Mussatto, Rylan Stiles, Nick Crain, Daniel Bell and Bally Sports’ Nick Gallo.
- All-Star practice was formatted so the Eastern Conference players practiced first and the Western Conference players practiced second. The tricky part is that the Eastern Conference players spoke with media afterward while the Western Conference players practiced, which meant media had to choose, which to attend.
- I decided to watch the Western Conference players practice and walked to Gilgeous-Alexander’s media availability, which was packed with media.
- Before Gilgeous-Alexander spoke with us, he was on the set of NBA TV, which was located right in the middle of the media availability room.
- Gilgeous-Alexander spoke for nearly 24 minutes, answering questions ranging from how it’s like being in a losing situation in OKC to saying something in Portuguese.
- I thought Gilgeous-Alexander was great and answered every question with awesome responses. You can easily tell how excited he was about being part of the event.
- I then got onto the media bus back to the media hotel and worked on tweeting out quotes and clips and then recapping Gilgeous-Alexander’s scrum.
- Late in the afternoon, I boarded the media bus to Vivint Arena and attended NBA Commissioner Adam Silvers press conference.
- After that concluded, I used my arena voucher for food and enjoyed Saturday’s events with Rylan Stiles and Nick Crain.
- I then attended the media party afterward, where I stayed until 2 a.m. MT.
Sunday, Feb. 19
- This was the big day and the entire point of going to Utah.
- In the morning, I had brunch with OKC media people.
- With plenty of time to kill, I went back to the convention center to play additional games.
- Later in the afternoon, I got on the media bus and entered the Vivint Arena for the All-Star game.
- After the All-Star game concluded, I hustled my way from Level 6 to Level 1 of the arena to attend Gilgeous-Alexander’s post-All-Star presser, which was mostly just OKC reporters.
- After Gilgeous-Alexander talked, I went to the media work room and tweeted out quotes and clips and then proceeded to write an article for the game.
- I walked back to the media hotel and attended the final media party until it closed at 2 a.m. MT. I mostly talked to OKC reporters there. With a late night flight back the following day, I could afford staying up that late.
Monday, Feb. 20
- I slept in a bit and did some additional All-Star work.
- Hotel check-out was at noon and my flight back to OKC wasn’t until 9 p.m. MT, so I had roughly 10 hours to kill.
- I spent the first half of that time doing work in the hotel lobby and spent the second half of that time doing work at the airport.
- The flight left on time, which wasn’t a guarantee due to snowy weather in Denver, and in less than two hours, I was back in OKC with Rylan Stiles, who was also on the same plane.
- Rylan Stiles was graceful enough to give me a ride back home to my apartment and I was in bed by 2 a.m. CT.
