The 10 Types of People You Run Into on All-Star Weekend

The NBA All-Star Game is on Sunday, and while it's very much a celebration of the league's finest talent, that's also completely besides the point of the entire weekend. The game itself is merely a show for the fans who only have access to the weekend through their television—the real fun, games, and business will be happening in and around New Orleans, thanks to a cavalcade of NBA players, player entourages, groupies, and celebrities heading down south for the NBA's yearly extravaganza. We broke down all the faces mixed into the All-Star Weekend crowd in The 10 Types of People You Run Into on All-Star Weekend.

NBA Legends

The NBA cut their annual All-Star Legends Game in 1994 after (surprise) the old alums coming back to the court after years of less-than-graceful aging and slowing metabolisms kept getting injured during the game. Still, All-Star Weekend manages to lure NBA legends from every era. Want to see Dikembe Mutombo or Hakeem Olajuwon in person? All-Star Weekend is your best shot. They, along with former greats, such as Bill Russell, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson, all have ambassadorial responsibilities to fulfill for the NBA, and given that the NBA is a relatively young league, many of its legends are alive.

Imagine if MLB could trot out Babe Ruth and Cy Young every year for their All-Star game—that's essentially what the NBA can still do, and rightly takes advantage of.

Ladies of the Night

The Super Bowl made headlines for the widespread prostitute and human sex trafficking busts around NYC, and given all the attention those arrests got, the odds of the New Orleans' Police Department stepping up their shit should be pretty good. No big-small city wants to be outdone and out policed by New York, right? With so much money and NBA talent in one city, loads of newly imported call girls (hopefully "imported" by choice, of course) will be on the prowl to flex their professional skills, but at prices fitting for All-Star level salaries.

Brand Ambassadors

Don't be surprised if the iconic Bourbon Street is re-named to "Jim Beam's Bourbon Street" for the weekend. NBA sponsors will all have their own individual sponsorship activation sites to lure fans to participate in hands-on advertising masked as entertainment. Companies will have "street team marketing representatives" (really just college kids wearing company hats and t-shirts for $20 an hour) out and about to distribute free samples, party favors, and whatever other pieces of marketing propaganda companies feel like giving out.

David Stern built the NBA, and NBA's highlight weekend on the back of lucrative corporate business partnerships, and Adam Silver will certainly be just as accommodating. Let it be known to any fan down in New Orleans on a budget: it will definitely be possible to enjoy enough free food and booze from generous corporate sponsors to survive the weekend.

Thirsty Groupies

For regular readers of BallerAlert.com, this is Christmas, 4th of July, and bi-weekly payday all rolled into one weekend. The website already has a long list of clubs and parties for groupies with dreams of having Paul George's baby to check out. Given how much ammo Thirsty Groupies will have this weekend, it would be disappointing not to see condom sales rise 754 percent in New Orleans from Thursday to Monday. It's the only way to fight back, gents.

Swaths of Media, Big and Small

All-Star Weekend only has to compete with the Sochi Olympics, and unless you recognize one of Team USA's athletes from their Subway sandwich ad on your Olympics broadcast, you're going to be watching NBA entertainment. This, in turn, will create a media bonanza in New Orleans. At no other time during the year will the NBA employee to square mile ratio be so high, giving journalists from every outlet that could afford a Best Western hotel stay a shot to snag interviews for a thirsty NBA blog-reading Twittersphere. Content saturation will surely be maxed out by time the Dunk Contest rolls around.

Entourage Members

We've been over The 10 Types of People You See in Every Star Athlete's Crew, so refer to that field guide to spot out exactly who all the dudes surrounding James Harden at the club are. But since this is a weekend of festivities and a little side debauchery, expect The Guy Who Holds the Credit Cards, But Isn't Always Aware of the Account Balances to delete the Bank of America mobile app from his phone, and for The Hangers-On to be plentiful. Every All-Star Entourage will be rolling quite deeply down in New Orleans.

Players Who Aren't All-Stars

While much of the league will take the weekend off to rest, see family, and enjoy a few days of normalcy, more outgoing players without families will take the chance to get down to New Orleans and see their people. NBA players have plenty of friends on other teams, and the league's long weekend gives them a chance to all meet up in one place. Think of All-Star Weekend just like any other weird convention for fans and talent to come together, like Comic Con or the Consumer Electronics Show. For non All-Stars, that means taking the opportunity to participate in whatever media and fan events get set up during the day while heading out on the town with your All-Star brethren later.

This is no doubt the best behind-the-scenes part of All-Star Weekend, because it creates the potential for bizarre anecdotes to trickle out, like the time Kobe Bryant once challenged a Raptors player to a rap battle in a hotel lobby. And I, for one, would love to see Vine footage of Kyrie Irving attempt to strangle Andrew Bynum, with Joakim Noah officiating the struggle. Adam Silver, make that happen.

Rappers

Basketball is the unofficial sport of hip-hop, making All-Star Weekend a Rap All-Star Weekend of sorts. Only the genre's premier names will get courtside seats and party with the league's best players. Last year, Jay Z, Beyonce, Drake, J. Cole, 2 Chainz, Nas, Diddy, and many more were spotted, and this year, Kendrick Lamar and Pharrell won't only be hanging around, but also performing during the game. Ballers and rappers have been BFFs for decades, and given the hectic schedule that all sets of baller-rapper friendships maintain, this weekend is one of the rare opportunities for them to hang out, pop bottles, and do extravagant things together.

Celebrities Who Don't Really Care About Basketball, But Want to Be Seen

Last Sunday, it dawned on millions of Americans that football is over, and the only active major North American sport right now is NBA basketball. NBA All-Star Weekend has always been a perfectly positioned event—right after the Super Bowl, but before March Madness. This weekend, the NBA is at the center of the American sports fan's eye, giving not only the league, its players, and its cities as much attention as the NBA can get in February, but also the attention of celebrities and entertainers who will jump into the wide spotlight. For any celebrity who missed out on flirting with the masses at the New York Super Bowl, this All-Star weekend is a nice consolation PR tit.

During the celebrity events and various parties around the city, random names are bound to pop up on the night's itinerary, like television and media personality Samantha Harris serving as an assistant coach for last year's celebrity All-Star game. Does the former Dancing with the Stars hostess necessarily know who Clyde Drexler or Bruce Bowen is? No. But if she looked hot in front millions of young American NBA fans (she did last year), then the weekend is a win.

Overzealous Fans

With the Who's Who of the NBA descending upon one city for an entire weekend, Thirsty Groupies aren't the only degenerate group in attendance—there will be plenty of Overzealous Fans chasing their heros around New Orleans like hypebeasts following Kanye West through SoHo. Bless LeBron James if he's able to enjoy jambalaya just once without being dapped up. For anyone prop betting All-Star weekend, the over/under on the amount of times Kevin Durant gets asked for a photo is 1,000. It's not often that the NBA's premier players are available for so much fan access throughout a city, and there are plenty of obsessed guys out there who will do anything to share a moment with them.