In his sixth All-Star Game, Chris Paul won his first MVP award. (Getty Images)

HOUSTON — Los Angeles Clippers point guard Chris Paul asserted control over the 62nd NBA All-Star Game early and maintained it late, scoring 20 points on 7 for 10 shooting, dishing 15 assists and grabbing four steals in just 27 minutes as the Western Conference All-Stars defeated their Eastern counterparts, 143-138, at the Toyota Center on Sunday night.

Nine of Paul's 20 points came in the fourth quarter, including two big 3-pointers in the final 3 1/2 minutes — one to stem an East run and put the West up by six, the other a body blow that pushed the lead to 11 inside two minutes. Between his late-game scoring and his early facilitating, with four first-quarter dimes, including a couple for huge alley-oop finishes by his regular L.A. running buddy Blake Griffin, the six-time All-Star showed the kind of overall command of the festivities to earn his first All-Star MVP honors, and the first All-Star MVP award in Clippers franchise history.

"Make it quick — I've got to get to Vegas," Paul joked as he entered the interview room, MVP trophy in hand, after the game. The 27-year-old point guard, who's averaging just under 17 points and 10 assists per game for the Pacific Division-leading Clippers, called winning the MVP "pretty special" and "something that I definitely, coming into the game, I wasn't trying to achieve, or thinking that it might even be possible."

[Related: First-time All-Stars explain the thrill]

"I told [Kevin Durant] early in the first quarter, I said, 'Man, if they score anything, you run,'" Paul said. "'I'll get you the ball, you score. I want to be the one to give it to you.' In games like this, it's so uptempo and fast-paced — a guy like me that's a facilitator, I enjoy [that]."

HOUSTON — I don't know if you've heard, but Michael Jordan turned 50 years old on Sunday. You probably missed it, because it's not like anyone's made a big deal about his birthday at all or anything, or tweeting about it all day. It's been a pretty low-key affair, so you might very well have missed it.

Luckily for the newly half-century-old Hall of Famer, the folks at the organization formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons didn't miss it. Not only did they put Jordan on the cover of the February edition of AARP Magazine, but they also gave him a very special birthday gift via Twitter:

Our gift to Michael Jordan at tonight's #NBAAllStar: bit.ly/12X5AX1 #BeLikeMike - get your own: bit.ly/12X5AWZ #MJ50

— AARP (@AARP) February 17, 2013

Nice. (Image via AARP_official on Instagram)

The swanky patches on LeBron James' and Kobe Bryant's All-Star warm-ups. (Image via @SteveKylerNBA)

HOUSTON — When LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and the rest of the participants in Sunday night's 2013 NBA All-Star Game come out of the locker room to take the court at the Toyota Center, you'll be able to see exactly how much they've been able to achieve in the league, not just based on the level of their play, but also by patches displaying and recounting their career highlights on their black-and-white warm-up jackets.

The NBA and Adidas described the idea of celebrating each individual All-Star's C.V. when they unveiled this year's All-Star jerseys last month, but they didn't reveal what the customization would look like. And given the look of the jerseys themselves — which The Basketball Jones' Trey Kerby described as a "wacky" uniform combining "every design feature you can imagine" into a finished product that "came out looking like a default create-a-team uniform from 'NBA Live 2001'" — that mystery presented some cause for concern. But if the patches on the warm-up jackets of the Miami Heat's James, the Los Angeles Lakers' Bryant and the San Antonio Spurs' Duncan (which you can see after the jump) are any indication, the resulting graphical representation of each players' accomplishments actually came out pretty cool.

[Related: Chris Paul wins MVP as West beats East in All-Star Game | Photos]

Ricky Rubio looks to pass. Like always. (Nathaniel S. Butler/NBA/Getty Images)

HOUSTON — After spending nine months working his way back from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, it wasn't exactly an ideal situation for Ricky Rubio to come back to have to carry a major load (albeit in minor minutes, at first) for a Minnesota Timberwolves team missing leading scorer and rebounder Kevin Love and expected rotation wings Brandon Roy and Chase Budinger. But that's the hand he and his team were dealt, and so the 22-year-old Spaniard has played it, with less-than-stellar results; he's shooting just 34.3 percent from the floor and 13 percent from 3-point range, and the Wolves have played about 4 1/2 points per 100 possessions worse with him on the floor than with him off it, according to NBA.com's stat tool.

And yet, despite his and the team's struggles, he and the Wolves remain worth watching and keeping track of, simply because of Rubio's preternatural ability to not only set his teammates up, but to do so in about as entertaining a way as possible; at least once a game, he does something that forces you to rewind your DVR and figure out how he saw what he did, how he threaded that needle, and how he keeps doing it when opponents know they basically don't have to defend him from outside. It's a neat magic trick the sophomore's pulling; now, coach Rick Adelman and Wolves fans have to hope that the next rabbit out of his hat will be learning how to lead an ailing Minnesota squad to results that are greater than the sum of the team's damaged parts.

Rubio spoke with BDL for a few moments at an Adidas promotional event on Saturday morning about his knack for the remarkable, the increased responsibility that comes with being a franchise cornerstone playing without his inside-out partner, the tough road ahead for the Wolves and more.

Zach Randolph and David Lee reminisce. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBA/Getty Images)

HOUSTON — After spending much of Friday's All-Star media session talking with this year's slew of first-time All-Stars about what it feels like to learn you're an All-Star, I figured it'd be neat to ask a few players who've gone through the All-Star Weekend experience before but for whom it's all still relatively fresh — players who've made one or two All-Star teams before, rather than perennial selections — what they remembered about their first trip to the midseason showcase. (Then, I saw an opportunity to ask one of those all-timers, so I did.)

If you'll permit a bit of notebook emptying, a quintet of responses, in brief:

Golden State Warriors power forward David Lee (two-time All-Star, made his first appearance in 2010 while with the New York Knicks): "This is completely different, because the first time I found out as a replacement a couple of days before. Everything was like a blur — I got the call, I was excited [but] at the same time nervous, because it was my first [All-Star] game and it was really just such a spectacle to me. I felt like I was kind of on the outside looking in. Now I really feel like it's been a season building toward this, I feel like I really deserve it, and I'm able to kind of relax and really take everything in this time around."

[Related: First-time All-Stars explain the thrill]

Memphis Grizzlies power forward Zach Randolph (two-time All-Star, made his first appearance in 2010): "You know, I felt I was supposed to be an All-Star a couple of times [before that] ... so, you know. But it was just a blessing. I just take it for what it's worth. Like I said, I'm humbled about it, I appreciate it and I'm thankful for it. And to be in a room with all these other All-Stars and elite players in the league … it's just great."

Onward and upward for first-time All-Stars Kyrie Irving and Brook Lopez. (Garrett Ellwood/NBA/Getty Images)

HOUSTON — While Sunday's 2013 NBA All-Star Game will be headlined by familiar faces like 15-time fan selections Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett and nine-time All-Stars LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, it will also feature quite an infusion of new blood. Seven players in the annual midseason event are first-time All-Stars — James Harden of the host-city Houston Rockets, New York Knicks center Tyson Chandler, Cleveland Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving, Indiana Pacers swingman Paul George, Philadelphia 76ers point guard Jrue Holiday, Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah and Brooklyn Nets center Brook Lopez.

So what is it like when you learn that, for the rest of your life, you'll have the title "NBA All-Star" next to your name?

"I just started yelling and going crazy," Harden said during Friday afternoon's All-Star media session. "[...] Just to hear my name called, and I saw it on TV as well — it just felt like such a great individual accomplishment."

[More NBA: Ranking the best of NBA's dunk contest]

Just another in a series of great individual accomplishments for the hirsute shooting guard, who's fifth in the league in scoring at 26.1 points per game, averaging career per-minute highs in assists, steals and free-throw attempts, and acting as the catalyst of a Rockets offense that ranks fifth in the NBA in points scored per 100 possessions and has Houston hoping for its first playoff berth since the spring of 2009. Being chosen to play in his home arena only adds to the experience, Harden said.

"It's great, especially this being my first time," he said. "It makes it that [much] more special. I'm just enjoying it and having fun with it."

HOUSTON — Thanks to noted philosopher Dave Chappelle, it's long been widely accepted that most things look better in slow motion. This is especially true when it comes to slam dunks, which are often pretty rad in real-time, but tend to look even more stylish and remarkable when the pace slows down. Given these two truisms, we present to you, the trusting BDL public, video of Toronto Raptors rookie Terrence Ross' 2013 Sprite Slam Dunk Contest-winning performance from All-Star Saturday Night, as captured by the NBA's high-speed Phantom cameras:

Two things about this that stood out to me and that I didn't get to catch up in the press area of the Toyota Center: I love how Ross' eyes lit up after he completes his spin and spots the rim on his behind-the-back dunk and I was very concerned at how close his left knee came to connecting with the back of that young ball boy's head during his final dunk of the competition. I found myself cringing, even knowing it turned out OK; it's a good thing Li'l Dude was turned away from the flight path and thus blissfully unaware of how close he was to getting rocked. Oh, well; all's well that ends well, right?

After the jump, two more slow-mo treats from heavily favored (and, unfortunately, disappointing) entrants Gerald Green and James White.

Toronto Raptors rookie Terrence Ross has been crowned the champion of the 2013 Sprite Slam Dunk, besting reigning champion Jeremy Evans and several other contestants who received heavy promotion and stoked fan interest.

Yet, while Ross took home the trophy, the dunk contest has always been more about singular moments of greatness than the night's body of work. The real test of a dunk contest performance is what people will remember five years from now. And while this particular contest was disappointing enough that it might not produce any such moments, the fact remains that the winner does not always make the greatest impression.

Ranking individual dunks is an inherently subjective task, and I don't mean these rankings to be definitive. My hope is that they help to explain what might have been disappointing or lacking in this contest, and also what made it intermittently exciting.

So, after the jump, check out a countdown of the top seven jams, with videos and photos, as well as some miscellaneous thoughts on the contest as a whole.