• I met up with Foxx, dressed in a business casual suit and sweater ensemble with a Dodgers hat, and he introduced me to his newest business endeavor, bottled water. "It's Bling, baby," Foxx said as he let me hold the blinged-out bottle. "It's all about image in Hollywood, and this is the water to drink if you want to look sexy." Foxx stopped being a pitchman when I brought up Kobe, a sensitive topic between him and his friends back in Los Angeles. "You know I'm trying to make this the national Don't Hate Kobe month, I'm trying to not hate the man, but I can't do it," Foxx said. "I don't care what he did, this is the Mavericks' year. I sat down with Mark Cuban the other night and we're going to play some old-school Detroit Pistons defense when we play him again. He won't be scoring 62 points in three quarters, and he definitely won't be getting to 81."

• Sitting next to Deion Sanders and his lovely wife, Pilar, each dressed to the nines, I felt a bit underdressed, but Prime Time put me at ease. "This is a party," he said. "We're all family, you're fine." Sanders, who came to the game after his wife insisted that they go, said they left the kids behind in Dallas for the weekend and decided to make the short trek to Houston. "Next to the Super Bowl, this is the biggest party weekend in sports," said Sanders, who said he isn't as much of a partier as he was during his playing days. "This is right up there because everyone comes out. Guys who didn't even come close to being an All-Star want to come out and be a part of this." Sanders, who has been known to be a bit of a hot dog in his day, was surprisingly unimpressed by Bryant's 81-point performance last month. "I don't want to say it was selfish, but ... ," Sanders said, shrugging his shoulders. "They won the game and he made most of his shots, but you can't win games like that. Look at Michael Jordan. You have to be a team player if you want to win championships."

• Ice Cube had a ticket for Kobe's 81-point game but was in Mexico when he heard about it. "I've only missed two games this whole season and that was one of them," he said. "My son was there and he called me up. I thought he made a mistake. I thought he meant that the Lakers had scored 81. When he told me it was just Kobe, I was in shock." Despite the Lakers' having Kobe and Jackson, though, Cube thinks it will be a while before they can contend for a title. "We still haven't found a No. 2 guy. I thought it was going to be Lamar [Odom], but he doesn't work in the triangle; they need some help."

• Before the game started, I nestled myself in between Donald Faison, Ludacris and Queen Latifah, seated on the baseline to talk about the game. Faison, however, was still upset about losing the celebrity basketball game a couple nights earlier. "Man, that ball messed me up. I don't know what was up with it," he said.

"You're blaming it on the ball," Ludacris said while laughing.

"Yeah, man, it was small and slick," Faison said. "It messed me up."

"Whatever," said Latifah, who was the coach of the winning celebrity team. "You play with what you got and we won."

Sunday, Feb. 19, 11 p.m.

Following the All-Star Game, I headed back to Next, where King Magazine, "the illest men's magazine," was holding the illest postgame party in conjunction with Nike. While the DJ was spinning some of the hottest tracks in rap and R&B, familiar faces such as Nick Cannon, Mitch Richmond, Ki-Jana Carter, Deron Williams, Clinton Portis, Emeka Okafor, Olden Polynice, Elton Brand, Luther Head, Warren Sapp, Sean May, Big Tigger, Spud Webb and Keenan McCardell were making their way into the club. Not only were they greeted by some live music by Cannon, who was center stage for most of the night, but they also got to see and dance with the lovely contestants of theMiss All-Star Weekend contest.

Free Throws

• Portis, sans his usual outrageous costumes, found his way on stage midway through the party and got down with some of the dancers while Cannon egged him on. "Clinton Portis in the house," he said. "Single ladies, where you at?"

• Toward the end of the night, I was hanging out next to the patio when Sapp, dressed in baby-blue Jordan warmups and shoes and smoking a cigar, took over a corner of the room, avoiding the long drink lines by ordering a bottle of Grey Goose and a six-pack of Red Bull. "That's the way you got to do it," I told him. "You know it," he said. Later, I ran into him again with Lang Whitaker and we got to talking to the Pro Bowler, who admitted he was a major sneaker-head. "I want to open up a sneaker head shop in Florida," he said, showing us a picture of a room full of kicks on his Sidekick. "This is what you'll see when I'm online."

Monday, Feb. 20, 4 a.m.

I'm not sure how much sleep I've gotten in the past four days, but I could probably count the hours on one hand, so with that, I'm going to wrap up this year's All-Star diary and hibernate until next year's All-Star Game in Las Vegas. Something tells me the chances of getting any sleep that weekend will be slim and none as well.