NBA Players Build Crappy Houses

As part of the National Basketball Association's NBA Cares program, current and former NBA players helped Hurricane Katrina victims by building houses -- really shitty houses.

Billed as the "NBA Cares All-Star Day of Service," the world's best basketball players fanned out across New Orleans to help rebuilding efforts during the NBA All-Star Weekend.

Phoenix Suns Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire, who are masters of the pick-and-roll but know nothing about electricity, wired two houses that immediately burned to the ground.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, who along with Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, built a porch that collapsed moments later, said: "New Orleans suffered a great tragedy. What we're doing is providing a small helping hand in its overall recovery."

Delores and Keith Crasten's two-story house was completely submerged when the levees failed over two years ago, but now their home is being rebuilt, not by skilled carpenters and contractors, but by Muggsy Bogues, Tony Parker and George "The Ice Man" Gervin.

"I just don't know what to say," an emotional Mrs. Crasten said while watching Gervin secure her new staircase with zip ties and velcro.

Mr. Crasten watched as Gary Payton and Luke Walton reconstructed his garage, which now is little more than plywood sheets balanced on top of his Ford pickup.

During last year's All-Star Weekend, NBA players delivered babies at Desert Springs Hospital in Las Vegas, and in 2006 they assisted Houston police in taking down inner-city drug gangs.