The 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend is sure to bring back a lot of memories. With a little help from Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown honored Terrence Clarke in the Slam Dunk Contest and paid tribute to Dee Brown.
Tatum started for the East in Sunday’s mid-season opener and scored 20 points, which is well short of the 55 points he posted in the final game of the season to break the single-game record and secure MVP honors. Brown put up a fight with 36 points to win this year’s MVP, which Damian Lillard ultimately won.
Many will argue that the league’s showcase has misplaced its luster and that’s true, however I received argue that right here. I’m positive a child rising up at this time will go to mattress tonight with all their favorite photographs from the sport maintaining them up. Sadly, I’m previous the marvel of all of it. Nonetheless, there was this second:
After I noticed this ten-second clip flash by on Twitter, it truly took me a second to register it. “Flashback” is likely to be a greater description. That handshake was not only a handshake between a Celtics legend and a legend-to-be, however cosmically, it was my 46-year-old self reaching out to my 10-year-old self.
It gave me the identical chills because the digitally-enhanced NBA on TNT NBA Ceaselessly teaser, however this was actual life. Watching Larry Fowl greet Jayson Tatum actually signified how lengthy I’ve beloved this sport, this crew, and their wealthy historical past.
“It’s not one thing you are taking without any consideration. Solely twenty-four of use get to be right here yearly. There’s 450-500 gamers within the league, in order that’s a extremely massive deal. It’s a particular weekend. You bought the very best gamers on this planet. Quite a lot of retired guys come round and also you get to see them,” Tatum mentioned after follow on Saturday.
“It’s nice for the followers. It’s nice for your loved ones. That’s my favourite a part of the weekend, with the ability to carry my son clearly and my mother, seeing all of the retired guys I grew up watching, attending to spend time with them.”
Earlier than Sunday night time, the closest Jayson Tatum acquired to Larry Legend was profitable the inaugural award named after Fowl again in 2022 when Tatum was named the Larry Fowl Jap Convention Finals MVP.
However with the All-Star Recreation in Fowl’s yard this yr, it supplied the right alternative for the 2 to really meet in individual. Fowl, Julius Erving, and Adam Silver have been within the East locker room earlier than the sport, however Tatum didn’t get an opportunity to introduce himself.
“I keep in mind saying, ‘I’ve by no means met Larry Fowl. I’ve by no means been in the identical room as him.’ As loopy as that sounds, it’s by no means labored out,” Tatum mentioned. However earlier than tip-off, a part of the Celtics PR workers noticed Fowl and ran Tatum down.
“I acquired an opportunity to go meet him, inform him how a lot of an honor it was to satisfy him, and he instructed me that he was wanting ahead to assembly me. That was loopy to listen to him say that. He was loads taller than I believed he was. What he means to the sport, what he means to the town of Boston and the Celtics — he’s the final word Celtic. It was an honor to satisfy him.”
I truthfully can’t keep in mind if Paul Pierce ever met Fowl. If any readers recall the assembly, please point out it within the feedback. It wouldn’t shock in the event that they didn’t. Fowl doesn’t make a variety of public appearances and rarer nonetheless are his visits again to Boston.
But when they’d met, I’m not even positive it could have hit me as laborious as Fowl-Tatum did tonight. Twenty-one years separate Fowl and Pierce in age, and one other twenty-one between Pierce and Tatum. That’s 42 years between Fowl and Tatum.
The second lasted a mere ten seconds. There didn’t appear to be some massive rah-rah speech about elevating Banner 18 with most likely only a easy change of pleasantries that one would count on between a 67-year-old and 25-year-old 19-year-old. For this fan, it sparked a perspective in me that I didn’t see coming, however definitely admire now.
The theme of the weekend appeared to be rising the league and the sport’s viewers, whether or not that was Steph Curry and Sabrina Ionescu’s shootout or LCD glass flooring at All-Star Saturday Night time or Brown inviting on-line streamer Kai Cenat for one in every of his dunks.
“It’s for the youngsters,” I reminded myself and in the long run, by one handshake, the NBA jogged my memory that I, too, was a child as soon as.
