2009 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Shaquille O'Neal & Kobe Bryant (tie)

Box score

MVP tie: Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

Bench (10+ points): Brandon Roy (14), Tony Parker (14), Pau Gasol (14), Shaquille O'Neal (17)

Bench (10+ points): Paul Pierce (18), Mo Williams (12)

Game context

The 2009 All-Star Game, played February 15 at Phoenix's US Airways Center, reunited two of the most storied — and combustible — teammates in recent NBA history. Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal had won three championships together with the Lakers earlier in the decade before a public falling-out led to O'Neal's 2004 trade, and this marked the first time the two had shared an All-Star roster since that split, both selected as Western Conference reserves that year (O'Neal by then playing for Phoenix, Bryant still with the Lakers). O'Neal made a theatrical entrance during pregame introductions, arriving last while wearing a white mask and dancing onto the court with the JabbaWockeeZ dance crew before rejoining his teammates, a moment that set a lighthearted tone for what became a lopsided rout. The East actually opened well, building an early 20-10 lead, but once West coach Phil Jackson — reunited with his former championship duo for the first time since 2004 — inserted O'Neal alongside Bryant, the tide turned decisively. The West responded with a 19-0 run that erased the deficit and effectively decided the outcome barely a quarter into the game, and the conference cruised from there to a 146-119 win, one of the more lopsided final margins of the 2000s. Bryant and O'Neal shared MVP honors, with Bryant finishing as the West's leading scorer at 27 points while O'Neal contributed his customary interior presence; Chris Paul orchestrated the West's offense with a game-high 14 assists, while LeBron James led the East with 20 points in the losing effort. The co-MVP award for Bryant and O'Neal was widely read at the time as a symbolic reconciliation between two players whose rivalry had defined much of the Lakers' storyline earlier in the decade, playing out in real time in front of a national television audience just a few years removed from open sniping between the two in the media. The game also represented Phoenix's third time hosting the All-Star Game, continuing the Suns' status as one of the league's more frequent All-Star Weekend hosts. For O'Neal, by then 36 years old and playing for his fourth franchise, the shared MVP award offered one more moment in the spotlight during the twilight of a career that had begun with dominant Orlando and Lakers seasons over a decade earlier, while for Bryant it added to what was already becoming one of the most decorated individual résumés in All-Star Game history.

Sources

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