End The Drought: Why Boston Deserves To Host The NBA All-Star Game

1964 was quite a year, wasn't it?

The Beatles began the British Invasion of music. Cassius Clay won the World Heavyweight title from Sonny Liston. The average American's income was $6000.

1964 was also the last year Boston hosted an NBA All-Star Game.

When I first began researching this, I thought there had to be a mistake. Certainly, there was no shortage of all-stars from the Celtics through out the years. 19 players totaling 86 elections since 1964.

There have been no shortage of championships. Ten since the 1964 season, which does not include the one they won in that year.

While there were some lean years in the Shawmut Center turned FleetCenter turned TD Banknorth Garden. Everyone loves an All-Star game, and the stands would have been filled.

Need more evidence?

The list of cities that have hosted an All-Star game since Boston did is long: Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Richfield, Ohio. Yes, Richfield hosted an All-Star Game.

There are even cities on the list that don't have NBA teams anymore, like St. Louis, Cincinnati, and San Diego, or ones that never had one like Las Vegas.

However, the biggest slap in the face has to be the number of the cities that have hosted it multiple times. Some of the notable ones are Los Angeles and Phoenix hosting three times, New York City and Chicago twice.

Philly even hosted four times if you include the lockout year game that never happened.

This is getting to be a bit ridiculous. What is the justification here? The desire to have the game only in warm-climate cities. If so, that is ridiculous and unfair to a majority of the league.

Basketball is played in the winter time across the U.S. and Canada. If the high-level executives and sponsors cannot cut it for three days, that is tough. Do what the rest of us do, deal with it.

With revived interest in the Celtics, an ownership group hell-bent on quality, and a championship team that will be competitive for years to come.

It is time for the city of Boston to once again welcome the league's best in a three-day orgy of dunks, mascots, and zero defense.

It is been 45 years. End the drought and bring the All-Star Game back to Boston in 2011, or else we will sick Kevin Garnett and Tommy Heinsohn on you.

Josh Nason is the founder of Small White Ball, a New England-based sports and media blog. He can be reached at [e-mail]