Several San Antonio Spurs alumni were selected for and played in today's D-League All-Star game.

Marcus Cousin, who was with the Spurs in training camp and preseason is currently the starting center for the Austin Toros and he was selected to start at center for the West.

In just over 20 minutes, Cousin finished the game with 19 points, five rebounds and one blocked shot for the losing West team, good enough for second in scoring for the West and fourth overall.

Larry Owens, who recently played through two 10-day contracts with the Spurs before rejoining the Tulsa 66ers, finished with 12 points, four rebound and three assists.

Also joining Cousin and Owens on the West squad was Cedric Jackson, who was called up from the Erie Bayhawks and played through a 10-day contract last season. Jackson came off the bench for the West, but made his presence felt with six points, seven rebounds, seven assists and two steals.

Garrett Temple, who played with the Spurs last season and was with the team before being waived this season, started for the East and finished the game with nine points and four rebounds.

Be sure to keep it here on Project Spurs for all your Spurs All-Star coverage. 

With the plethora of young stars taking the stage in Los Angeles last night, San Antonio Spurs sophomore forward DeJuan Blair and rookie Gary Neal provided fans with some remarkable highlights.

Blair wowed fans with his highlight dunking ability, as Neal showed Hollywood his accurate shooting and ability to hit big baskets in closing moments, as the rookies defeated the sophomores 148 to 140.

DeJuan Blair began the night by scoring the first basket of the game for the sophomores with a 21-foot jumper over rookie phenom Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers.

At the ten-minute mark, Blair played eight minutes and had 12 points (6-7 FG). His only miss was a three pointer. He also caught a one-handed alley-oop dunk to “Wow” the crowd.

Gary Neal started for the rookies and in his first six minutes of action shot two three pointers and made one of them. He had 3 points. The rookies led 33-32 at the ten-minute mark

Blair had a potential play of the night by throwing a pass off the backboard to himself, then he one handed tomahawked the ball on the way down.

Blair had 14 points (7-9, only misses were two three pointers) and 3 rebounds in 12 minutes of action going at the end of the first period.

The San Antonio Spurs will be well represented tomorrow night at the 60th NBA All-Star game with Manu Ginobili as a Western Conference reserve, Tim Duncan starting for the West and coach Gregg Popovich leading the West team.

While in Los Angeles, Ginobili, Duncan, DeJuan Blair, and Assistant Coach Mike Budenholzer weighed in on their amazing NBA-leading record at 46-10, Manu speaks on his MVP chances, the Spurs stealing the spotlight in Los Angeles, and more. Take a look.

(videos woai.com)

San Antonio Spurs forward Matt Bonner is averaging 50% from the three-point line this season and leads the NBA in three-point field-goal percentage yet he did not receive an invite from the NBA to participate in the 2011 NBA Three-Point Shootout at All-Star weekend in Los Angeles.

So what does Bonner have to say about this?

"Yeah it bothers me. Obviously that's kind of like my All-Star game. It's what I do. I shoot threes. It didn't happen again this year. I think I hurt my knee. I got a bone bruise and I missed three or four weeks. I guess that was cause enough for them (NBA) to keep me out again."

Those who will be invited are Ray Allen, Kevin Durant, Daniel Gibson, James Jones, Paul Pierce, and Dorell Wright.

Bonner's three-point shooting percentage is still better than each of the players invited. Just saying.

In case you missed it, San Antonio Spurs' DeJuan Blair had an insane off the backboard one-handed slam in the 2011 T-Mobile Rookie Challenge for the sophomore team. Check it out!

But this wasn't the first time Blair did the same dunk.

When he played for the rookie team in last year's Rookie Challenge, he had a similar dunk.

By the way, did anyone else feel Blair was robbed of the Rookie Challenge MVP award?

• Sure the San Antonio Spurs lost to the Chicago Bulls last night to end the Rodeo Road Trip but Manu Ginobili had this tasty dunk on Bulls' Carlos Boozer:

• Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who will be coaching the Western Conference All-Star team this Sunday, shared his thoughts on Justin Bieber playing in the celebrity game:

San Antonio Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich turned music critic during Friday's media gathering at  NBA All-Star weekend.

Asked "what does it mean at the celebrity game, Justin Bieber is going to be with with us [in the celebrity game]," Popovich said, "It would be disingenuous of me if I told you how excited I was to see Justin." (latimes.com)

• ProBasketBallTalk.com says the Spurs feel their hot start will be meaningless if they flounder in the second half of the season:

“It is going to be hard, because we have a bulls-eye on the back now,” Ginobili said. “We are leading the NBA. Same with the Lakers or Celtics, everybody wants to beat you. They want to test themselves against the best in the league, so it’s going to be harder to maintain.

“But we don’t want had one of the great first half of the season. We want to complete it. We want to complete it, we want to win the championship.”

• Spurs coach did an interview with Ole.com and said the Spurs are not going to be champions without Manu Ginobili:

Pop se deshace en elogios para Ginóbili. “No podemos ser campeones sin él”, asegura el coach.

• Mikkayla Guillett and yours truly of the Project Spurs affiliate site Toros Nation, shared our thoughts on the Spurs' D-League affiliate Austin Toros at the break:

At the break, the Toros are a game and a half out of the playoff hunt. Unless things turn around for the better, there’s a possibility the team will miss the post season. Something that hasn’t happened since the San Antonio Spurs gained full control of the team four seasons ago.

Hit the jump to find out how to win free tickets to the Spurs-Oklahoma City Thunder game this month, what Tim Duncan eats on gameday, and more.

You hear him on TNT on Thursday nights and he has made it known he isn't a fan of the San Antonio Spurs. NBA great Charles Barkley has repeatedly said the Spurs are not the best team in the NBA let alone in Texas.

But has he had a change of heart? Check out the video from WOAI.

Former San Antonio Spurs forward Dennis Rodman has been named a finalist for the Basketball Hall of Fame:

Dennis Rodman, Jamaal Wilkes and Tex Winter are among 12 finalists for induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Rodman was the flamboyant rebounder who won five NBA titles with Chicago and Detroit; Wilkes won four NBA titles with Golden State and the Lakers after starring at UCLA; and Winter was the architect of the triangle and triple-post offense.

Those elected to the Hall of Fame will be introduced April 3 at the men's Final Four in Houston. The induction ceremony is at the hall in Springfield, Mass., from Aug. 11-13. (nba.com)

Rodman was traded to the Spurs for Sean Elliott in 1993 and played with the Spurs until 1995. He averaged 17.3 rebounds in 1993-1994 season and 16.8 rebounds in his final season before being traded to the Chicago Bulls for Will Perdue.

For his career, the "Worm" played in 911 games, averaged 7.3 points, 13.1 rebounds, 1.8 assists.

Let's hope his off-the-court issues do not interfere in the voting and the focus be on what he brought to the court.

During the Rodeo Road Trip, I got a chance to speak to San Antonio Spurs rookie guard Gary Neal in Philadelphia about him participating in tonight's T-Mobile Rookie Challenge and come to find out, this will mark his first time ever going to the All-Star weekend, let alone participating in it.

"It's a new experience for me," said Neal. "I've never been to an All-Star game, All-Star weekend or anything like that. So I'm just really looking forward to it."

Neal will be going up against fellow Spurs teammate DeJuan Blair who will be playing for the sophomore squad and he is hoping to go one-on-one against Blair.

"It's going to be fun. Hopefully I can get a couple of switches out on him on the perimeter and attack him a little bit."

What about crossing-up Blair on the perimeter?

"Yeah have a little fun with it," Neal said smiling.

Regardless of the outcome of the game, Neal knows to just have fun in Los Angeles.

"But it's going to be a good experience. Just something I'm looking forward to and really looking to enjoy," Neal said.

Box Score | Advanced Stats | GameFlow

Only one thing stood between the San Antonio Spurs and a win to close out the rodeo road trip last night in Chicago.

A 6-3, 190 lb. point guard named Derrick Rose.

Rose scored a career-high 42 points against the Spurs using every trick in his arsenal no matter who was defending him, and it was more than enough to give the Spurs their 10th loss of the season 99-109.

While Tony Parker did his best to carry the team offensively, scoring 26 points, Manu Ginobili struggled, scoring 16 points on 6-of-18 from the field and making just one of his five three-point attempts.

For the spurs, Gary Neal scored 16, Tim Duncan had 14 and Richard Jefferson finished with 12 points.

Luol Deng scored19 and Carlos Boozer added 15 points for the Bulls.

With the loss, the Spurs are now 46-10 on the season, six games ahead of the Dallas Mavericks.

In Retrospect

Jeff Garcia spoke to Marco of Horns to the Hardwood before the game and asked him if people are sleeping on the Bulls in the East.

"Everyone is enamored with the Heat and the Celtics. The Heat get the attention for having 2 superstars and one good player on their team. The Celtics get the attention because they're really good, and because Boston is ESPN's child. The Bulls sit at 37-16, two games back of the 1 seed in the East. And the biggest reason teams are sleeping on the Bulls is because you really don't know how good Derrick Rose is until you see him everyday. He's really picked up the load with Noah and Boozer out for extended stretches, and will carry them deep into the post-season."

In Black & White

Rose in bloom spells Spurs' doom (San Antonio Express-News)

Derrick Rose’s career-best helps Bulls beat Spurs (Chicago Sun-Times)

Quoteable

"To date we have a good record but nothing of importance has been accomplished yet." - Gregg Popovich

Fantasy Focus

I don't think I have to waste any keystrokes talking about Rose and his performance. Plus if you don't have him on your roster, you aren't getting him without a trade.

Gary Neal seems to have bounced back from his slump, averaging 13.5 points his last four games. He scored 16 points against Chicago and made four of his five three-point attempts.

Tweeting the game

The Michael Jordan Award for BEASTIN' goes to Chicago's Derrick Rose dropping a career-high 42 pts + 8 asts vs NBA best #spurs. Sick. -@therealcabbie.

Derrick Rose- first Bulls player since Michael Jordan to score 40+ points against the Spurs. Rose, career-high 42 points in the Bulls win. - @Buccigross.

The Four Factors