YouTube Gold: The 1987 NBA All-Star Game
A look back at old-school NBA
In 1987, the NBA was a very, very different place. For one, it was a much more physical league. For another, it wasn’t as much about three point shooting as it was about getting inside.
For another, the players weren't all buddy-buddy like we see today. There were real and intense rivalries.
In the All-Star game of that year, there was a remarkable constellation of talent. For the East, we saw Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, Dominique Wilkins and Moses Malone - and those were just the starters.
Add in Kevin McHale, Charles Barkley and Isaiah Thomas and you get an idea of how much talent there was.
The West had Magic Johnson, Alvin Robertson, James Worthy and Hakeem Olajuwon. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar came off the bench, along with Mark Aguirre, Walter Davis and Tom Chambers, among others. Ralph Sampson was also selected but was injured.
No one ever plays defense in these games and it went to overtime, with the West inning 154-149. Tom Chambers, who was Sampson’s replacement, was selected as MVP.