On the other hand, the center of a star is much hotter than the periphery, so there are potentially more accessible states in phase space for the particles in t

On the other hand, the center of a star is much hotter than the periphery, so there are potentially more accessible states in phase space for the particles in the former location (it's "can be in N positions in phase space", which depends on the available physical space and the possible velocities). Not that this would affect California vs Rhode Island analogies, unless you could demonstrate that things in Rhode Island were a lot hotter...