LOS ANGELES — As general manager of the New Orleans Pelicans, Dell Demps badly wanted to be sitting in the crowd last February as his star forward, Anthony Davis, became the first player in NBA history to score 50 points in an All-Star Game.

Davis ended up with 52 points, to be exact, but Demps could not leave his office at the Smoothie King Center to enjoy any of it.

Because while Davis was assembling his masterpiece on the court, in the Pelicans’ own arena, Demps was forced to stay behind closed doors as he pressed to complete one of the most important trades in franchise history.

The final yes from the Sacramento Kings on their willingness to ship DeMarcus Cousins to the Pelicans, as Demps recalled in an interview this past week, came “with about two minutes to go in the fourth quarter.”

The 2017 All-Star weekend will be forever remembered in league circles for the manner in which the Cousins trade came about. Reports of a possible Cousins-to-New Orleans deal began to circulate a few hours before the All-Star Game tipoff. Word that the teams were poised to go through with the trade then reached Cousins — and Davis — during postgame interviews with the news media.

But there will be no such drama this weekend in Los Angeles. Indeed, there will be no deals at all — blockbuster or otherwise. The NBA’s annual trade deadline was on Feb. 8 this year, marking the first time in at least four decades that it occurred before the All-Star Game was played.

It is difficult to be more precise than that because the league’s official records on the matter date only to 1987. But a research assist we received from an indispensable Twitter follow for fans of the game’s rich (but often overlooked) past — @ProHoopsHistory — confirmed that the trade deadline had come after the All-Star Game going as far back as the 1978-79 season.

What can be said without hesitation is that without any trade talk in the background, this All-Star weekend feels drastically different from any in recent memory. Just as the NBA had hoped.

“Our goals in moving up the trade deadline were twofold — to avoid it being a distraction over All-Star weekend and to allow traded players to use the All-Star break to get acclimated to their new teams and cities,” Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, said earlier in the week. “Early returns have been positive.”

Mitchell wins dunk contest

The NBA dunk contest was a throwback in many ways, with a 21-year-old rookie and a 25-year-old, third-year pro fighting it out for the trophy.

Larry Nance Jr. rolled out his father’s old uniform — down to the knee-high socks — and then rolled out his father himself to help with one of his dunks. But he came up short against Donovan Mitchell, the precocious Utah Jazz rookie with his own sense of history.

Mitchell put on a show at Staples Center to win the slam dunk contest and cap off NBA All-Star Saturday.

Mitchell edged Nance Jr. 98-96, sealing his victory with a close approximation of the 360-degree spin dunk that Vince Carter used to win the 2000 contest.

Booker wins 3-point contest

Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns won the 3-point contest with a record 28 points in the final round and Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets won the skills challenge.

Booker beat 2016 champion Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors and Tobias Harris of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Dinwiddie is skills champ

Spencer Dinwiddie of the Brooklyn Nets won the skills challenge to kick off NBA All-Star Saturday.

Dinwiddie, who played at Taft High in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, beat Lauri Markkanen of the Chicago Bulls in the final round.