Five would-be All-Star hosts with history on their side

	How about one more All-Star Game in New Jersey before the Nets' move to Brooklyn? Al Bello/Getty Images

There continues to be much talk about All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas, the first time the game was held in a neutral site, if anything about our Gomorrah can be called neutral.

Did some of the news reports (as overblown as they might have been) forever squelch the idea of holding a game in a non-NBA city? Given the problems in Las Vegas and questions about security already being raised about New Orleans for next season -- Houston's Tracy McGrady addressed them recently -- should the idea of holding the 2008 All-Star Weekend in the Big Easy be subject to reconsideration?

Should a permanent site be found for the game, presumably one where things like gambling, drinking and fighting aren't so prevalent? If that is to be the case, I suggest Sheboygan, Wis., which, for one glorious season (1949-50), had an NBA franchise. (The Redskins, by the way, finished with a 22-40 record in what was then known as the Western Division.)

And speaking of Sheboygan, All-Star Weekend should be nothing if not a history lesson. Commissioner David Stern is always talking about the importance of the game's pioneers, but I don't see much pioneering in the choices of All-Star sites. So I have a five-pack of suggestions for venues of future games, all of which would come with a lesson.

2009 -- Continental Airlines Arena, somewhere in New Jersey.

That could be the Nets' last season before they move to Brooklyn. So let teams and fans get tied up in New Jersey Turnpike traffic and shut out of the few hotels that are nearby, and no one will question why the franchise is moving to a borough that has terrible traffic problems and few hotels. Anyway, Joisy is due -- the game hasn't been in Swampland since 1982.

2010 -- Arco Arena, Sacramento.

The way I figure it, the Maloofs will be ready to move the team out of Sac and into Vegas by then, and the league will be ready to allow it. True, it's a small arena, and, true, the city doesn't have much to offer besides a tour of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's discarded cigar stubs. But the cowbell-ringers deserve the game. They have never hosted All-Star Weekend and they've been loyal and loud since 1985.

2011 -- TD Banknorth Garden, Boston.

Of course, it will likely be called something else by then. For that weekend, get a special city ordinance to rename it simply "Boston Garden." Allow smoking, hire back the old-time organ player and sell bad food. It will be like Red Auerbach is still alive.