An NBA All-Star weekend review, and why Kyrie Irving’s Mavs return can wait

“Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte” is a weekly newsletter curated by DMN sports columnist Kevin Sherrington where he hits all of the latest sports topics around North Texas and all major sports.

Sign up for the Sports Roundup newsletter to receive exclusive content from Sherrington every week. Read an excerpt from this week’s newsletter below.

Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte

– If NBA types insist on comparing Cooper Flagg to LeBron James almighty and risk making the kid’s mama mad that we can’t just let Cooper be Cooper, I’m OK with that. There are worse comparisons. But, of all LeBron’s other-worldly traits, the most astounding is the fact that, at 41, he’s still ballin’. Considering the Mavs’ recent history, I’d be happy if Flagg is still a Mav in five years.

– Among other things, Kyrie Irving tweeted that Flagg is “chasing history” and said fans will get an update “soon” on his return. No hurry, Kyrie. The longer this takes, the less Adam Silver can object to the Mavs’ tank job.

– Like Sherwin-Williams, Victor Wembanyama surely does “Cover the Earth,” and he instigated a fun and even competitive All-Star format, a concept previously thought impossible. We’ll try not to read anything into the fact that there was nary a Mav in sight.

– Remember when the dunk contest needed no introductions?

– Joc Pederson says he wasn’t embarrassed by an awful first season as a Ranger because he did “everything” he could “to prepare to stay healthy and be successful.” Really? Everything? Funny, then, that he showed up in Surprise this time around 20 pounds lighter. Less is not always better, but, in Joc’s case, it’s a good place to start.

– Skip Schumaker is big on culture, as is yours truly. Sunday supper would be no fun around our table if the kids didn’t get along so well. Just the same, my experience is, the better you play, the more everyone likes you.

– More than half of the Olympic athletes from North Texas are Stars, representing four flags: USA (Jake Oettinger), Czechia (Radek Faksa), Canada (Thomas Harley) and Finland (Mikko Rantanen, Roope Hintz, Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell). Could the Stars sweep the medal stand?

– If Plano’s Amber Glenn wins gold in figure skating, she’ll be the second-oldest singles champ since Madge Syers in 1908. She’s already the oldest U.S. women’s singles skater since 1928. How old is Glenn, anyway? All of 26.

– In order to avoid paying Kenny Clark the $21.5 million he’s owed this fall, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell proposes the Cowboys ship their primary return on the Micah Parsons deal and a seventh rounder to the Bengals for a sixth. That’s it. And you thought the return on Anthony Davis was light. Still, they’ve got to do something to cut payroll at DT. Quinnen Williams, Clark and Osa Odighizuwa would rank fourth, fifth and sixth among their cap hits this fall.

– Story time: On Nov. 23, 1997, yours truly found himself in Green Bay for the hosts’ 45-17 rout of the Cowboys, the first of five straight to close out the Barry Switzer Era in Dallas. Fun while it lasted, I suppose, unless you were Troy Aikman.

Anyway, before the game, the boss suggested I leave the cozy confines of the press box for the parking lot, where I should talk to the tailgaters. This is what’s known as a “scene piece.” These types of stories are harmless enough, except winter in Green Bay, when you consider career alternatives.

Once in the parking lot, I got out my ballpoint pen and notepad to take notes. In those days, we didn’t have Otter, an invaluable recorder/transcription service. Just the basics of the trade.

As I moved among the locals, a light rain began to fall. Trying mightily to keep my notebook dry, I noticed on top of everything else that the pen wasn’t working.

Frozen ink, it seems.

There was no going back then. Pressing the point of the pen hard into the paper, I tried to make enough of an impression so that, held in a certain light, I could read it later. The problem was that people talked faster than I could carve.

As a result, I swore off ballpoint pens altogether, eventually switching to the Pilot G-2, a gel pen. Used them ever since, and they’ve never failed me.

Case in point: I was retrieving clothes from the dryer over the weekend when I heard a clattering in the drum and realized I’d left a pen in the pocket of a shirt. You could imagine the ink-splotched horror that went through my mind. Amazingly, it didn’t leak a drop. Not only that, when I put it back together, it was as good as new.

Before you get the idea that this was some sort of endorsement, you know it was nothing of the sort. Just another inside story about the business. But if anyone’s interested, I’m available for pitches.