East practice starts for Sunday’s All-Star game

On Sunday, Westbrook will start along with Bryant, Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Stephen Curry, while Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Paul George, Kyle Lowry and Carmelo Anthony will start for the East team.

“I didn’t feel it was wise to continue to push it, especially with this elongated week that we have off. I just wanted to make sure I was taking the necessary precautions and being a good professional”. Patrick Patterson is another player who’s had struggled shooting the ball this season but has found other ways to contribute, either with passing or playing good help defense.

“Going up against him and defending the turnaround shot”, Bryant said.

And then there is Bryant. It’s his last one.

Maybe that notion isn’t so farfetched.

“I let the diss record drop, you was staying right below me, n**** / We must have played it a hundred times, you was going to bed / Why would I put on a vest?”

The leading vote-getter among fans exuded a happy-to-be-here vibe largely because of the aches and injuries that limited him to a combined 41 games during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons while causing him to miss a handful of games in recent months during his 20th and final season.

But Toronto, where the Toronto Huskies and New York Knicks played on November 1, 1946, in Maple Leaf Gardens and is so passionate about its Raptors that general manager Masai Ujiri was fined a couple years ago for using an expletive about playoff opponent Brooklyn _ with Commissioner Adam Silver in attendance _ is “an ideal host”, Silver said. “So I think it depends on the mentors that you have, it depends on the internal motivation or spirit of the kid himself”. I mean, I was fulfilling a dream.

Bryant sounded like a dusty record player with the needle stuck in a single groove while describing the hardest part of his season.

Is that fair? Not really, Bryant said. I don’t know too much.

On Friday, Feb. 12, the festivities begin with the Rising Stars Challenge, which will pit the league’s best rookies and sophomores against one another in a battle between worldwide players and ones born in the United States.

Bosh has been replaced in Sunday’s all-star game by Atlanta’s Al Horford.

Magic Johnson won the MVP award in 1992, only months removed from the announcement that he was HIV-positive. “Our game is made up of so many different make-ups, so many different countries, so many different players, shapes, sizes…so we all do our part to make sure the shield is protected”.

Suffice to say, it isn’t the most competitive practice. It will be streamed live online on the NBAs TNT Overtime site.

First, the touching tribute video in Charlotte and now an epic sneaker collection, Michael Jordan has pulled out all the stops to honor the closest player ever to challenging his legacy. “I respect him for giving back to these young guys and to see what will make them successful in this league”. “After that, I knew all the stuff we went through was silly”.

Not only have these Raptors played elite defense so far but have still kept their offensive rating top 10 as well, now sixth overall rating.