With NBA All-Star weekend here (I know...the NBA borders on a dirty word - or in this case, acronym, here in Pittsburgh), thought I'd take a quick look around the league.

We can start with DeJuan Blair getting royally, well, screwed in the Rookie/Sophomore challenge on Friday. The Grizzly Blair went for a monster 22 points and rookie game record 23 rebounds leading the rookies to a rare win over the sophomores. His output was the first 20/20 performance in the game's history. Tyreke Evans ended up winning the MVP award with 26 points, but only a handful of rebounds and assists. Evans did end up making a classy gesture, asking Blair to join him to hold the MVP trophy after the game.

Apparently one of the things that kept him from getting the award was the voting had to wrap up before the game was completed. Blair ended up grabbing six of his rebounds and four points in the last 1 1/2 minutes. Not sure exactly why they had to rush to get the voting in. I know the MVP is announced fairly soon after the game, but they can't wait like five extra minutes? Blair seemed to take it at least a little hard:

"It hurts me, man," said Blair, shaking his head. "It really does hurt me, but it is what it is."

Sam Young wasn't selected for the game, but has averaged a respectable 7.5 points in about 16 minutes per game with Memphis. He's scored 15 points six times this year and has gone over 20 in three games. His shooting has been pretty accurate as he's hitting over 47% of his shots.

Looking over to Aaron Gray, I was pretty sure he would get more minutes in New Orleans as he's the backup center now as opposed to being behind several guys in Chicago. But the Hornets seem to be going with smaller lineups as Gray and he's appeared in only three of their ten games since the trade, averaging about five minutes in each.