Apollo Jets: Jock Air

The annual National Basketball Association All-Star Game isn’t taken too seriously by basketball fans. It’s best appreciated as the culmination of a weekend of parties attended by athletes and their celebrity friends. Before the most recent competition on Feb. 26 at the Amway Center in Orlando, the players mingle beside the court with director Spike Lee and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson. Rapper-turned-actor Common visits Cee Lo Green. Their younger peers, Lil Wayne and his protégé, Drake, make faces for TNT’s cameras.

In the midst of this revelry, Al Palagonia, a fast-talking private jet broker with a thick Queens accent, is hustling. “Hey, Deron,” he calls out to New Jersey Nets point guard Deron Williams, who stops shooting baskets and trots over to discuss his flight home to the Garden State after the game. Palagonia speaks to Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant about the food on his post-game jet. And he huddles with Philadelphia 76ers forward Andre Iguodala. “I got his new phone number,” Palagonia says afterward. “These guys are always changing their phone numbers.”