"Blake Griffin jumped up off the bench, ripped off his sweats and checked into Sunday's NBA All-Star Game at Staples Center late in the first quarter.

He replaced Kobe Bryant, the two sharing a fist bump and a smile near the West sideline.

The implications were impossible to ignore.

A changing of the guard?

Too premature.

The passing of a torch?

A tad bit presumptuous.

A glimpse into the future?

Perhaps.

But let's make one thing perfectly clear.

Los Angeles still is Kobe Bryant's city and the NBA remains his kingdom.

Griffin may be able to leap over cars or go viral on the internet at any moment by climbing over 7-foot opponents for sick dunks.

And to be sure his everywhere-all-the-time-act during All-Star weekend served as a gateway to a new level of stardom.

The whole world now knows who Blake Griffin is, and it will be

fascinating to see how far the Clippers rookie rises over the coming years.

But this still is Bryant's time, his era.

And as he showed so profoundly Sunday, he isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

"I joked with him and called him the old fella," said Oklahoma City star Kevin Durant, like Griffin one of the game's up-and-coming personalities. "But he's still playing like a 22-year-old."

And he acted like one Sunday.

It's not like Bryant needed the 37-point, 14-rebound MVP performance he delivered to validate his place in the game.

But it didn't hurt.

"He's Kobe. He does things like that," West coach Gregg Popovich said.

And it's not like he had to throw down a dunk on LeBron James - barely sneaking it by him as he did - one second then breaking his ankles on a move to the basket the next to prove he remains firmly entrenched a top the NBA throne.

But just for the fun of it, he did just that.

"We shouldn't be surprised," Popovich said. "He's one hell of a player."

In the process, Bryant re-established one important truth. It's still a thing of beauty when he dials it up and delivers the type of show he put on Sunday, even if it did take some help from Pau Gasol, Durant and Chris Paul down the stretch to hold off the East's late run.

Bryant, burned out by a scintillating first half in which he scored 21 points, including a couple of high-light reel dunks, faded a bit late in the game.

"In the fourth quarter I had nothing left," he said. "I exceeded my dunk level by then. Those dunks took my legs out of it. That was it."

But getting just enough assistance from his young teammates, Bryant held on to win his fourth All-Star MVP award, which ties him with Bob Pettit for the most ever.

And whether he intended to or not he again showed why he remains the best player in the game. "