"I couldn't feel anything," when Kevin O'Connor called with the news, Okur said. "I'm so glad I didn't hit someone with my car."

Yeah, the NBA is too. They expect the Jazz's 6-foot-11 center to be in one piece on Sunday, when he suits up for the first time - and as the first Turk - alongside basketball's greatest players. Okur and Seattle guard Ray Allen were selected Tuesday by

NBA commissioner David Stern to replace Suns guard Steve Nash and Denver guard Allen Iverson in Sunday's glamor game in Las Vegas.

Okur has never set foot in Vegas before, and judging by his dumbfounded look of joy as he contemplated his greatest professional honor, he could become the first tourist to not notice anything unusual about the city. Okur couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the notion of actually earning the league's most prestigious invitation; he even made O'Connor, the team's senior vice president, repeat the message before he warily believed it.

"My heart was like t-t-t-t-t. Fast. Man, I started to sweat," he said. "This is more [exciting] than anything in my basketball career."

Then came the tears. "I called my wife and she started crying. She couldn't talk, she just turned the phone off," Okur said. "I called my family [in Turkey], and they started to cry. This is so exciting."

One man's excitement is another's disappointment, an emotion that belongs to Deron Williams. The Jazz guard had been considered a strong candidate, too, but was passed over.

"This is tough. I think he deserved it, too," Okur said. "He's been working hard, day in and day out. But he's such a young player, he's going to make it."

Okur always believed the same of himself, too, and spoke frequently of what it would mean to his homeland. The news figures to make the free-spirited basketball star a hero in Turkey, and that might be what makes him proudest of all, Okur said.

"It's an honor for my country," Okur said, and it's even better than the night three and a half years ago when he won an NBA championship with the Pistons, since he had been only a minor figure in the title run. "This is different. This is the best one in my career," he said.

Okur and Carlos Boozer, out with a fracture in a leg bone, will represent the Jazz in Las Vegas, and though only Okur will play, it's still the first time since 2000 that two Utah players can call themselves All-Stars.

"It's great. He's won a lot of games for us this year," said teammate Matt Harpring. "Of course Boozer too, but Memo's been a big part of our success."

That's an understatement. Okur has nailed game-winning shots in the final 40 seconds of four different games this season, and he has averaged 24.3 points, six more than his season average, since Boozer was injured.

Those big shots - and the Jazz's 34-17 record heading into tonight's game with Cleveland - are probably what earned Okur the invitation over Portland's Zach Randolph or the Clippers' Elton Brand, both of whom have better scoring and rebounding averages.

"He's earned it, as hard as he's worked since he's been here. He's gotten better every year. Look at the improved defense, at the rebounding," O'Connor said. "It validates [the idea that] if you succeed as a team, you succeed as an individual."

Now the hard part: Getting his wife and family to Las Vegas. Okur's parents are looking into trans-Atlantic flights, not certain if they can make it. And Yeliz, Okur's wife of two years? She's eight months pregnant and might not be able to fly.

"I'm going to call her doctor, and we're going to ask her if she's able to fly," Okur said. "If not, we'll find someone to drive."

Uh-oh. Better hope he doesn't get any more phone calls.

pmiller@sltrib.com