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For weeks like reports continuous trickle that the NBA and its players were considering after all, hosting an impromptu All-Star Game, many experts and fans were wondering: Why? Whether concerns about the health and safety ramifications of All-Star Weekend were significant enough to suspend the mid-season festivities in November, and whether the pandemic is still raging with more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases and thousands of deaths per day, so why the sudden push to gather the brightest stars in the league in a way that, given the sheer number of people involved, seems even riskier than normal games that take place during a regular season already abbreviated and tense? What’s it for?
The volume of those questions rose to 11 Thursday night, because the voice asking them did not belong to a columnist or TV head. He was a 16-time All-Star LeBron James.
“I have no energy or enthusiasm for an All-Star Game this year,” James told reporters after the Lakers’ 114-93 win over the Nuggets. “I don’t even understand why we are having an All-Star Game.”
James’s comments came hours after ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that the NBA had sent a memo to teams informing them that the league “would have a finalized agreement with the NBPA” to hold an All-Star Game in Atlanta “next week.” According to Wojnarowski, the plan detailed a one-night event that took place at State Farm Arena, home of the Hawks, on March 7 that would combine the usual skills competitions that are usually held on Saturday night of the weekend. All-Star with the main event itself.
However, hosting that one-night stand requires clarifying a gigantic amount of detail. Chief among them: How to safely bring together players, coaches, and staff from across the league, who have been operating for weeks under strict health and safety protocols specifically intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 to avoid another suspension of the game. at the same time, in one place. Wojnarowski reports that the league and the players union continue to discuss those details, which are expected to include “players arriving on Saturday and leaving Sunday night under strict quarantines.”
The new plan also has guidelines for players who are not selected as All-Stars. Under normal circumstances, those players often use the All-Star break as an opportunity for a quick vacation; now, however, they will be international travel prohibited (although domestic options still include some tropical destinations), tested daily and forced to be back in his team’s market two days before his team’s first game of the second half.
That second-half schedule isn’t finalized yet, of course, because the league has had to postpone more than 20 games from the first-half roster due to positive COVID-19 tests and associated contact tracing. Part of the argument for leaving the second-half schedule unwritten and building on the five-day All-Star break without an actual All-Star Game was to give the league extra time to reschedule those recovery dates without putting players on. position to have to play an even more compressed schedule.
On Thursday, James, who has not played slow at the start of the season despite the Lakers being the last team standing in the bubble, playing all 23 games and performing at an MVP level, expressed frustration at the change. course of league stakeholders. at that point.
“And then going into this season, you know, they told us that we weren’t going to have an All-Star Game, so we’d have a little break,” James told reporters. “Five days from [March] From the 5th to the 10th, an opportunity for me to recalibrate for the second half of the season. My colleagues too. Some of the guys in the league. And then they throw us an All-Star Game like this and it just completely breaks it. So, more or less a slap in the face. “
The fact that the league is planning to hold the matter in Atlanta also adds another wrinkle here. From a logistical standpoint, Atlanta is home to Turner Sports, a league partner that could televise the game without the need to move an entire broadcast device across the country. However, it is also one of the top 10 NBA cities where fans can currently attend games, and one in which, recently and very famously, some fans sitting on the court were kicked out after engaging in a match. energetic, unmasked conversation with James during a Lakers-Hawks Game.
“And we are still dealing with a pandemic,” James said. “We are still dealing with everything that has been going on and we are going to bring the entire league to a city that is open.”
LeBron isn’t the only player raising such concerns. Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox, who is off to a good start and is getting excited about the All-Star Game after averaging 22.3 points and 6.6 assists per game for a team in playoff contention, didn’t mince words when he was asked earlier this week what he thought. on the All-Star proposal.
“If I’m going to be brutally honest, I think it’s stupid,” Fox told reporters. “If we have to wear a mask and do all of this for a regular game, what is the point of bringing the All-Star Game back? Obviously money makes the world go round, so it is what it is. “
Fox faces stiff competition for an All-Star spot in a packed Western Conference. If he succeeds, he said he would participate … although perhaps not with the kind of boundless enthusiasm you would normally expect from a young player winning his first appearance.
“You know you get fined if you’re supposed to be in it and you’re not hurt and you decide not to play?” he said. “That’s a hefty fine, so heck yeah I’d play in it. I hope they don’t fine me for saying that. “
James, who led all Western Conference players in the early returns of fan voting and would be a shoo-in to start in his 17th All-Star Game appearance, third on the all-time list, touched a similar note in the style of Marshawn Lynch: “I’ll be there physically, but not mentally.”
This, to put it mildly, is probably not the vibe the NBA would prefer its signature star and most influential public figure to communicate with the masses about the midseason showcase it’s trying to take off. The (billionaire) question is if LeBron, no unknown to speak and exercise his power in the affairs of the league; raising concerns about the game is enough to do something about it.
The argument in favor of the league’s reverse course here would seem to be about stoking fan engagement and capturing the eyes of a still captive audience to deliver huge ratings to streaming partners who shell out billions of dollars to maintain the lines. league lights on. An argument from the players side to the stage could focus, like Dan Woike from Los Angeles Times put it, in the “pockets of prominent players”, those who could have incentive clauses or escalators in their contracts that improve their results if they play in a real All-Star Game. As much as everyone complains about All-Star Weekend frills, it’s a reliable means of presenting the world’s best talent to an audience that may not be tuning in regularly for Jazz, Nuggets and Pacers. The stars are the product; the best way to promote your product is to show it to as many people as possible.
The league and the players union, if they wanted to, could at least offer some kind of public case for why this is all right. They could note that the fine print in the NBA’s November announcement only said that the plan to hold the game in Indiana had been postponed because “public health conditions prevented the Pacers, the NBA’s All-Star Host Committee and the NBA will properly plan and execute fan-focused All-Star activities in Indianapolis ”as envisioned, and they say they believe conditions now, if not Georgia generally (where the positivity rate is above 14 percent) cent), then in the NBA in particular (where the league’s positivity rate has decreased to 0 percent during the last four rounds of testing), they seem different enough to make a different determination.
They could make it clear that while the All-Star selection will remain a badge of honor, actual participation in the game will be optional without penalty rather than mandatory for players like James who have expressed concerns. They could emphasize the opportunity for this one-night event to serve as a megaphone for the importance of vaccination, an amplification of the public service announcements produced by the league that show legends like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and Gregg Popovich receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. on camera, and the need for continuous personal surveillance until the country has reached a tipping point of mass vaccination.
Until now, however, the league and union have remained silent, letting word about this leak out from connected reporters and the void to be filled with mocking complaints. But the din is a din now, because whether or not it is empirically a terrible idea, the face of the NBA thinks it is, and he says so. LeBron is the only person in the league to have had a stroke that made this a real problem for the NBA, and Thursday night he made it one. What remains now is to see how far down that road he, and any other player now feeling emboldened by the four-time MVP’s words, might be willing to go, and how Adam Silver and the powers that be respond to the most important thing. . voice in sport resonating.
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