A New Orleans N.B.A All-Star Game Diary

The N.B.A. All-Star Game was first played in 1951. Back then, it was a gimmick, and a single game. Now it's a multi-event circus that takes place over a long weekend. It came to New Orleans for the first time in 2008. All-Stars bearing hammers, nails, and paint went out into the neighborhoods in teams to help rebuild a city still reeling from Hurricane Katrina. "It wasn't that clear the city would come back at the time," Arnie Fielkow, who nows runs the retired N.B.A. players' association, said....