Brandon Roy: The Ever-Steady All-Star

There's usually not a whole lot you can take away from a players performance in an all-star game. You're playing with guys who you've "practiced" with only once or twice, so it's not as though you can run plays outside of the standard screen and roll variety. Most coaches want to make sure everybody gets minutes, so it can be tough to find a rhythm. Playing out of position is often required due to roster constraints, adding farther difficulty. And it's by and large a spectacle for the fans, so attempts at highlights supplant attempts at high-percentage shots. There's a reason why scouts don't show up to these games.

So while you usually can't judge a book by its All-Star performance, there is something you can glean from Brandon Roy's night in Phoenix: He plays the same way -- the right way -- all the time. He's simply not capable of anything less.

Check out his box score. A game-high 31 minutes (thanks a lot Phil! see you next Monday), 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting, five rebounds, five assists. That line just screams Brandon Roy. Typically efficient and yeoman; the kind of performance we've come to expect night in, night out from Brandon.

(By the way, Roy logged a team-high 28 minutes last season, making this the second-consecutive year he's lead the West squad in minutes. Either coaches are really trying to soak up the wonder that is coaching Brandon Roy, or they're intent on tiring him out. Then again, maybe it's because ... he always plays the right way.)

And then there are the basketball instincts; the things he does that don't result in a tally on the official box score. Closing out on shooters, boxing out, the pass that sets up the assist, following through on the jumper, pulling back on the fastbreak when the defense has numbers. Some guys seem to turn these skills off during all-star games, maybe with the somewhat noble intention of making the run more enjoyable for those in attendance. But B.Roy just can't do it. It's antithetical to everything that he is as a man and a basketball player.

That's not to say that he can't preen to the crowd just a bit though. Roy said he promised his family he would try to get a few dunks this time around; a promise he kept to the tune of three four jams. But he didn't force anything. Rather, he simply completed three very high-percentage shots. After all, finishing strong at the rim is an instinct, too.

After the game, Roy said he's "not really an all-star type of guy." But in reality, nothing could be farther from the truth.