‘Black Thanksgiving’ (per CNN) commences in L.A. this weekend

February 18, 2011 2:21 p.m. EST

David Aldridge is a longtime NBA reporter and columnist for NBA.com. He also is an analyst for TNT.

(CNN) — So, you want to know about Black Thanksgiving?

That’s what sports writer Mike Wilbon calls NBA All-Star Weekend.

First of all, what you need to know about Wilbon, whom I love, is that he has been known to exaggerate just a touch on occasion. But on this one, he’s on point.

For those of us who cover the NBA for a living, like me and Wilbon — now an ESPN yakker and writer, formerly a Washington Post yakker and writer, and my friend –All-Star Weekend is a long four days of work.

But for most of the people who descend into town — this year it’s Los Angeles, with its still sparkling Staples Center and the surrounding “L.A. Live” area — it’s an opportunity to go wild (sometimes a little too wild, as happened in Las Vegas a few years ago) and get together.

Other folks have Tweetups. Black people have All-Star Weekend, or ASW. It’s a national holiday, sort of.

ASW is the only time of the year that people call me. I don’t say that to be maudlin, ’cause most of the time, I don’t want people to call me. (Dirty little secret: I don’t really like talking on the phone.) But they come out of the woodwork this time of year, because NBA players are royalty in Black America, and everyone wants to be near them. The old saying is that ballers want to be rappers, and rappers want to be ballers. That’s really, really true.

Basketball is a culture. It isn’t for everyone, though the game is loved by people of all colors. There is a rhythm to it, just as if McCoy Tyner was dribbling a ball instead of playing piano.

“Considering that the culture of basketball in a predominantly black league like the NBA is so strongly connected to African American culture, the NBA All-Star weekend has turned into a celebration of African American culture by extension,” says Todd Boyd, professor of critical studies at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

The season begins just as baseball’s ends, when the days grow short and the weather turns windy and cold. The tempo is slow at first, like the beginning strains of John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” but then, just as with Coltrane, it picks up steam. Rookies like the Clippers’ Blake Griffin find their voice, and their game blossoms, as the calendar turns to a new year. While older, wiser veteran players and teams tinker here and there, not much interested in the daily standings, knowing that the important games come in the spring. They can wait.

The NBA Twitterverse keeps track of it all, a nightly update on who’s up, who’s down. It’s a community that needs no self-adulation, no monstrous celebration of itself, like the NFL and its Super Bowl, which is fine if you like naked commerce wrapped in patriotism.

ASW is an integral part of the calendar, a time for assessment. Coming less than a week before the NBA’s trade deadline, it is a time when teams take a look at their roster and decide whether its good enough to be a contender, or if it’s time to start rebuilding for next season.