USA TODAY International Edition
NBA’s All- Star cash grab flies against common sense
Even in the best of times, the NBA All- Star Game is not a competition as much as it is an event. Without the nightly parties sponsored by luxury brands, the convergence of celebrity and sport and the general mayhem of thousands of fans packing into a city, what you’re left with is a high- level pickup game that provides a nice little ratings spike for TNT on an otherwise quiet Sunday night.
At least we now know which part of that equation is most important to the NBA.
From the moment it was reported that the NBA was planning to bring a scaled- down version of All- Star weekend to Atlanta on March 7, it seemed like an odd decision. Now, after LeBron James spoke out strongly against it Thursday night, we know it’s just a flatout bad one.
“I have zero energy and zero excitement about an All- Star Game this year,” James told reporters. “I don’t even understand why we’re having an All- Star Game, but it’s an agreement that the players association and the league came about.”
James said he will show up in Atlanta and play if he’s on the All- Star team. But if the biggest star in the sport doesn’t really want to be there, if he’s going to simply go through the motions while bashing the entire enterprise, what exactly is the value of doing this in the first place during a pandemic season that has already proved difficult enough to pull off?
Now that James’ opinion is on the record, we should expect some other star players to follow. Kings point guard De’Aaron Fox was even more direct, call
ing the idea “stupid” but saying he would play if selected because he’d be subjected to a heavy fine for not showing up.
“Money makes the world go round,” he said.
So if the players aren’t really into it and a significant portion of fans think it’s a bad idea to take an already flammable NBA season and dump COVID19 kerosene all over it, who really wants this to happen? How far does this league have to go to chase a dollar?
Obviously the NBA and its television partners have a right to make money, and the All- Star Game is generally a valuable product. When you consider that the league is going to end up losing the vast majority of its ticket revenue for 1 1⁄ seasons – which also
2 affects players via revenue sharing and the salary cap – it’s no surprise they’re going to squeeze juice from this lemon every way they can.
But at this point of the COVID- 19 era, shouldn’t the priority for the NBA be simple and straightforward? Get through the regular season. Protect the players. Play the games that matter. Don’t do anything to screw it up.
Up to this point, the NBA has done the best it can to deal with these lessthan- ideal circumstances. The bubble was a huge success. When issues with positive tests came up early in the 2020- 21 season, the league tightened its protocols and got down to zero cases this past week.
The league has earned some benefit of the doubt. But the reality of what teams are trying to manage is evident to anyone who has watched the basketball on a nightly basis. While it would be too strong to say the season is a competitive farce, it is impossible to cram in 72 games into a shortened calendar with all kinds of back- tobacks and odd travel quirks without having it impact the quality of play.
Because of COVID- 19 pauses, Memphis and Washington have only played 17 and 18 games, respectively, while some teams have played 23. It’s unclear when or how many of those games will get made up. Heat star Jimmy Butler was out for three weeks due to health and safety protocols and reportedly lost 12 pounds, though he hasn’t confirmed whether he had COVID- 19 or not.
And that doesn’t even take into account the stress players are under to get tested regularly and follow stringent protocols on the bench, in the locker room and while traveling.
Unless the NBA jumps the line to get players vaccinated, we know that there will be more pauses, more games missed, more players getting sick. At this point, everyone understands that there’s no option other than grinding through it so that the league keeps running.
So you can understand why James and other stars might have viewed a five- day break in early March as a chance to recharge for the second half of the season and a long playoff run.
“And then they throw an All- Star Game on us like this and just breaks that all the way up,” he said. “So, um, pretty much kind of a slap in the face.”
Rarely does it come off well when multimillionaire athletes complain about having to play a game, but this is the exception.
After living with COVID- 19 for a year, most of us understand the risk- reward calculations teams and sports leagues are having to make so that they can play. But this one is completely puzzling.
While the NBA will do all it can to make sure there’s no outbreak among players who have to travel to Atlanta, this is shaping up to be a joyless event that nobody’s really clamoring for and yet one that does carry some degree of risk for keeping the stars healthy and the season on schedule.
“We’re still dealing with everything that’s been going on, and we’re going to bring the whole league into one city that’s open?” James said. “Obviously, the pandemic has absolutely nothing to do with it at this point when it comes to that weekend.
“Obviously, you guys can see that I’m not very happy about it.”
James doesn’t have to sign off on or agree with every decision the NBA makes, but he’s clearly correct about the misplaced priorities here. Under these circumstances, it’s hard to imagine anybody missing the All- Star Game. But apparently the cash grab is just too tempting.