Stern happy on eve of NBA All-Star Game

ORLANDO, Fla. -- On the eve of his league's 61st All-Star Game, commissioner David Stern Saturday night took a moment to remember where the NBA was about three short months ago.

"We've had a good season so far," Stern said. "We would like it to have been a little longer, but it couldn't be. We had this thing called a lockout."

Ah, yes, the lockout. Remember? The chance of a nuclear winter and a missed season seems so distant this weekend in sunny -- if not overly warm -- Orlando, where temperatures barely reached 70 Saturday as the NBA took over the sprawling town.

There were hoops-themed events at so many different locales that even Mickey and Goofy could have taken the weekend off. With the NBA's biggest stars making appearances on practically every street corner or shopping mall, it was easy to forget where the league was heading before the agreement to end the lockout was reached in late November for a breakneck-paced season that began on Christmas Day.

"The recovery has been spectacular for us," Stern said. "The results of the collective-bargaining agreement with the expected leveling of the playing field, and the ability for well-managed teams to compete more than our teams have had the opportunity to compete . . . We're thinking that we're in for a treat over the years as this situation continues to improve."

But what about this season? Playing 66 games in a truncated schedule has led to concerns about quality of play. The possibility of injuries to key players could water down the NBA's best time -- the postseason.

"The schedule is very brutal," said Knicks All-Star representative and East starter Carmelo Anthony, who has suffered through an injury-plagued first half. "Before you were playing two or three games a week; now you're playing three games in three days, or four games in five nights, and you've got seven in nine and in different cities. You don't have time to recover as long as you had in the past. But we asked for it. We asked to come back out of the lockout -- it's something that we wanted, so there's no need to complain about that."

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After returning from a strained groin, Anthony played in the Knicks' last three games before the break. Although it might have been better for his body if he had skipped the All-Star Game, that probably never was a consideration for the five-time All-Star, who is playing for the East for the first time.

Said Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard: "It's been a tough year and we're playing in so many games, it's hard for your body to really recover. It's hard to get a lot of rest, and just flying in and out of a city every night is very tough. You have to try to find out the best way to take care of your body. But a lot of guys seem to have gotten injured a lot this year."

Stern disputed that notion, however, saying: "I've looked at it recently, and I would say from the number of injuries, as we get it from the reports of the trainers and the discussion with the doctors, is about the same as the same period last year."

Plus, Stern pointed out, the players agreed to the schedule when they agreed to end the lockout.

"That was an agreement we made with our players," Stern said. "We managed to have a season, and a pretty darned good one . . . We're delighted with it, actually."