Another marquee star, Shaquille O'Neal, echoed McGrady's concerns to Newsday.

"I'm not sure if the city of New Orleans is ready for something like that," O'Neal, who played at LSU, told the newspaper. "I don't know what New Orleans' situation is, but from watching the Spike Lee special and watching the news, it doesn't look like it's ready for something like that."

Hunter, who has said he expects the city to be ready, also told Newsday he did have concerns about crime and whether the New Orleans police could handle the festivities.

"First of all, their police force is dissipated. They're probably dealing with half the force they had before," Hunter said, Newsday reported. "They don't have all the resources that we will need to properly police the city. They've got a serious crime problem as it is. And so what are they going to do?"

Many professionals who came back to New Orleans to rebuild have given up and are fleeing. Others can no longer afford rents because either the rents have skyrocketed along with utility costs or they have no jobs to pay the bills and they have to leave the area. Hospitals remain closed.

Paradoxically, New Orleans has become a smaller, yet wealthier city. The people who remained in the French Quarter and the Garden District were able to do so because those areas are on higher ground and both were wealthier areas before the hurricane hit.

But those who are trying to make a living and remain in the city are having a rough time. A woman who owns a post card store near Jackson Square hasn't taken a salary since the hurricane hit. She has money and wants to make sure her employees have work, but she has become frustrated with city and state officials who have told businesses that it might not be until 2011 until New Orleans is back to pre-Katrina commerce levels. That depends on not getting hit with another hurricane, tourists coming back and people repopulating the city. The owner of a nightclub just off Bourbon Street complained “business is way, way down.”

Next year's game should be a huge financial boost to the struggling city. Las Vegas officials estimated a non-gaming economic impact of more than $90 million, the Associated Press reported.

New Orleans needs the NBA All-Star Game far more than it needs the New Orleans Hornets. The city needs tourism. Stern and his owners are sending a signal that convention planners should follow their lead and go to New Orleans, but Stern, Hunter and the NBA can do and should do much more than just show up in New Orleans for a 72-hour period and party around Mardi Gras time.

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