Last
night Paul Pierce and Baron Davis, two of LA's favorite basketball
sons, hosted a party to promote the LA Stars foundation and its 2nd
Annual Celebrity and All-Star Charity Weekend that takes place August
3-5, 2007.
LA
Stars began as Magic Johnson's Midsummer Night's Dream. Last year Magic
passed the torch to Baron and Paul. This year, Baron and Paul add Agent
0, another LA product, to the LA Stars team.
Athletes
gone wild gets a lot of press these days. Even much of the positive
press athletes receive is manufactured, which is fine, but sometimes
you do wonder how athletes act when the cameras aren't rolling. I
thought it was worth pointing out that Baron and Paul didn't just show
up last night's event, but really showed how much they care about their
community.
When
Paul and Baron spoke to the group they weren't reading what someone
else wrote, but spoke eloquently about the mission of LA Stars' and
their goals of improving the lives of Los Angeles children. Baron added
something that was both classy and instructive, "There's a lot of
people here tonight, so if I don't get a chance to talk to everybody, I
apologize. I do want to meet everyone, so either pull me aside tonight
or hopefully you'll be with us for the LA Stars events and we get a
chance to hang out then. I love to talk."
With Baron, you know he means it. Baron and Paul have a lot of
great basketball left. But more importantly, they are great,
approachable guys who have the ability to reach a lot of people in Los
Angeles and beyond.
Baron,
along with former UCLA student and current Chicago Bear Brendon
Ayanbadejo, also founded We Should Not Be the Only Ones, a campaign
to draw attention to underrepresentation of African-Americans at UCLA
and other universities.
The only down moment of the evening was the Draft
Lottery. When it was announced that the Celtics dropped to No. 5 in
this year's NBA Draft bonanza, Paul had to sit down and regain his
composure. (The Celtics had an 88% chance of doing better than the 5th
pick). "Apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"
