Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
The Lakers' Kobe Bryant defending the Heat's LeBron James during the All-Star Game in Houston.
For the greatest basketball player on earth, All-Star weekend is not a game, but a marathon, a dizzying three-day slog through news media scrums, promotional appearances, charity events, business meetings and more news media scrums.
The merry-go-round of obligations starts Friday morning in the host city and does not end until long after the final buzzer Sunday night.
On Saturday afternoon, LeBron James was due at a local Boys and Girls Club, to help refurbish a gymnasium, which for James is an annual All-Star weekend tradition. The boys and girls expected James at 2:30 p.m. He arrived at 3:15. This was one case where a star athlete's tardiness was a mark of virtue, not casual disregard.
James, the N.B.A.'s reigning most valuable player, the engine of the Miami Heat's 2012 championship, had been hunkered down in a hotel conference room, with about 40 of his fellow players, stars and nonstars alike, working diligently to repair their scandalized union.
The players took a bold step Saturday, firing the union's executive director, Billy Hunter, whose business practices are being investigated by three government agencies. The sentiment in the room was said to be unanimous, but it was driven by two forceful figures: Jerry Stackhouse, an 18-year veteran, and James, a three-time M.V.P.
Amid an orgy of contrived competition, relentless marketing, tired events and semiscripted outcomes, James's sudden civic turn was perhaps the most real moment of the weekend.
"Well, it's our future," James said Sunday after the West beat the East, 143-138, in the All-Star Game. "Our current state as of yesterday wasn't in the best possible position we can be in. And that's why Billy Hunter's duties was relieved. And now we feel comfortable with where we're at right now. But we got a long way to go."
For years, the league's brightest stars have eschewed any sort of responsibility for managing their union. They rarely run for office or attend meetings, except for the occasional show of force during labor negotiations — and even then, they usually leave when the cameras turn off. This emphatic, principled stand by James on Saturday was a rare exception to the rule, and it mattered greatly.
Derek Fisher had been virtually isolated in his drive to have Hunter's questionable practices exposed. Last spring, Fisher's fellow executive committee members — bowing to Hunter's authority — asked for his resignation in an 8-0 vote.
It took an independent audit, a federal investigation and a flurry of investigative news reports for Fisher to gather enough support to suspend Hunter on Feb. 1, to put in motion the drive to oust him permanently.
But Fisher still had to persuade a majority of players, some of whom remained skeptical of him, to take the next step.
In the players union, as in the N.B.A., star power matters. Aura matters. Respect matters. So when James started asking pointed questions and making pointed statements, the room took notice.
James "practically cross-examined" the lawyers who prepared the audit, according to someone in the room. James and Stackhouse grilled Fisher about signing Hunter's most recent contract — the one that, according to the audit, was never properly approved. They demanded explanations from the committee members who previously sided with Hunter over Fisher.
"It was spectacular," said the person who was in the room. And it was unusual.
Chris Paul, the Los Angeles Clippers guard, is the only superstar on the union's executive committee. The oversight of union operations — including the oversight of its executive director — has fallen mostly to bit players with limited standing.
It was surely far easier for Hunter and his chief counsel, Gary Hall, to intimidate and silence Pat Garrity in 2009 — an incident reported in the independent audit — than it would have been to shut down, say, Kobe Bryant. Garrity was the first to ask questions about Hunter's nepotism and questionable investments, but his concerns were muzzled, allowing the problems to fester.
One wonders how quickly the union might have acted had James or Bryant or Paul Pierce or Dwyane Wade gotten involved sooner.
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