NEW ORLEANS — A year after ousting Billy Hunter as executive director of their union, NBA players still aren’t ready to replace him.
Players held their All-Star weekend meeting Saturday and were introduced to the remaining candidates for Hunter’s old job, but they aren’t ready to make a decision, or even to say when they expect one.
“This process has been long but we’re not in a rush,” vice president Roger Mason Jr. of the Miami Heat said.
Working with the executive search firm Reilly Partners, players said they began with a list of more than 200 candidates, but wouldn’t say how many remain or even if they should be considered finalists. Those who remained in the process were invited to the meeting Saturday and met with a group of about 30 players who attended.
Plans are being made to distribute a video of the meeting to additional players so they can be fully informed about the candidates before one is eventually hired.
Hunter was voted out during last year’s All-Star meeting, shortly after an independent review of the union was critical of a number of his business decisions and hiring practices.
Mason said players aren’t frustrated that a replacement hasn’t yet been chosen.
“We want to make this a thorough, transparent process and I think our players respect that,” he said.
While the NBA All-Star dunk contest had come under increasing scrutiny for a lack of originality and an increase in gimmicks, Washington’s John Wall insisted some new ideas are out there, if people know where to look.
Wall said a friend sent him a YouTube video of 27 dunks that had never been performed during the marquee event of NBA All-Star Saturday.
“There’s some ideas out there. It’s just the dunks are very hard to do,” Wall said. “You’ve just got to trust yourself to go out there and try, and try to master it.”
The first dunk Wall saw in the online video, he used to eliminate Sacramento’s Ben McLemore and seal up the Eastern Conference’s triumph in the event, which for the first time was a competition among conferences.
The winning dunk involved leaping over a mascot from behind, grabbing the ball on the way over the mascot’s head, then slamming home a two-handed, double-pump reverse jam.
“It seemed hard, but for me it came out to be easy, so it worked out in my favour,” Wall said.
This dunk contest was not without gimmicks, however.
Defending champion Terrence Ross entered the court wearing a boxing robe. Later, McLemore dunked by leaping over a throne on which Kings minority owner Shaquille O’Neal sat, and then McLemore knelt while O’Neal placed a crown on his head.
