1971 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Lenny Wilkens

Box score

Bench (10+ points): Bob Love (16), Lenny Wilkens (21), Elvin Hayes (10), Chet Walker (10)

Bench (10+ points): Gus Johnson (12), Jo Jo White (10), Lou Hudson (14)

Game context

The 1971 All-Star Game, held January 12 at the San Diego Sports Arena, doubled as a commemoration of the NBA's 50th anniversary and produced a tight, one-point West win, 108-107, that came down to the final possessions. Seattle SuperSonics guard Lenny Wilkens, coming off the bench, was the game's most efficient scorer, going 8-of-11 from the field and a perfect 5-for-5 from the line for 21 points in just 20 minutes, an economical, high-efficiency performance that earned him MVP honors over several higher-usage stars on the floor. The game was close throughout, with the West grabbing an early edge in the first quarter (30-26) and extending it slightly in the second (32-34 combined for a 62-60 halftime West lead), before the East briefly regained the advantage in the third quarter (23-20) before the West closed it out with a 26-24 fourth to hang on for the single-point win. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar led all Western starters with 19 points and 14 rebounds despite a modest 50 percent shooting mark, and Bob Love added 16 off the bench. For the East, Lou Hudson paced the offense with 14 points, and Willis Reed, the reigning MVP from the year before, anchored the frontcourt with 14 points and a game-high 13 rebounds despite a rough shooting night of his own (31 percent). This was the only All-Star Game held in San Diego, and it carried its own bittersweet local footnote: the host San Diego Rockets, who had provided the arena and the local draw for the event, would relocate to Houston at the conclusion of that very 1970-71 season, making this one of the last major professional basketball showcases the city would host for years. Red Holzman of the Knicks coached the East and Larry Costello of the Milwaukee Bucks led the West, both coaches drawn, per the standard practice, from that season's conference-leading teams. The 50th-anniversary framing gave the game additional ceremonial weight, situating it as a milestone moment in a league that, over the course of its first half-century, had grown from a fragile, financially precarious operation playing in mid-sized arenas across the industrial Midwest into a rapidly expanding, nationally televised professional sport with franchises stretching from coast to coast. Abdul-Jabbar's presence on the winning roster, still playing under the name he had only recently adopted after his 1971 conversion to Islam, marked one of several signs of a league whose biggest stars were increasingly comfortable asserting their own identities, on and off the court, in a decade defined broadly by growing athlete activism and self-expression.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1971 NBA All-Star Game