7:45pm: The league and NBPA now expect to officially finalize their agreement for scheduling the Atlanta-based All-Star game by next week, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.
8:14am: The NBA and the Players Association have reached an agreement to hold the All-Star Game in Atlanta on March 7, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. They are expected to finalize the plans by Thursday, Charania adds.
The 2021 NBA All-Star weekend was originally scheduled to take place in Indianapolis, but the league postponed it. Indiana will now host the All-Star festivities in 2024.
Chris Paul, the president of the players’ union, has been among those pushing a revamped All-Star Game in Atlanta, which he’d like to use to benefit historically black colleges and universities and COVID-19 relief.
It remains to be seen whether any other events will be held that day. It was previously reported that All-Star weekend would be condensed into a single-night event at State Farm Arena and would also include skills competitions.
Not all potential All-Stars are on board with playing an All-Star Game this year during the pandemic. On Wednesday, Kings guard De’Aaron Fox called the idea of playing an ASG “stupid,” Jason Jones of The Athletic tweets.
“I’m going to be brutally honest, I think it’s stupid,” Fox said. “If we have to wear masks and do all this for a regular game, what’s the point of bringing the All-Star Game back?”
I wonder what I should stream on Netflix while this All-Star stuff is going on…
trailer park boys and nothng else
Whatever you normally watch while every other regular season NBA game is going on. We’ll let you know when it’s the finals.
Have you watched the new season of Cobra Kai yet?
I can’t wait until they have new episodes for Stranger Things.
Of course you can’t. It’s all the rage for jr high kids. Stranger things that is. What my students tell me anyways.
I hear you. Sometimes after a stressful day it’s essential to come home and just be a kid in order to unwind and let go of the grind.
Exactly De’Aaron Fox. This hysteria doesn’t need to corrupt an All Star game & for what purpose?
As much as I’m not an ASG hater, the more I listen the more I agree it’s a bad idea. High risk, low reward — unless majority of the players really, really want it and there is some significant morale boost that comes along with keeping on course/rewarding stars. Otherwise we could have 2 weeks of postponed games, which does no one any favors.
I just hope through all of this they remember…blindfolds. Raise the stakes, force the stars to rely on all their senses, and really impress us. Blindfolds…
What was the purpose of moving it from Indianapolis to Atlanta?
I don’t know. Can’t imagine Bankers Life got double booked lol
Moving it from Indianapolis to Atlanta? That sounds like a Players Association move. Can’t go to Cali. Can’t go to NY.
Atlanta more of a preferred player destination than Indy. Just making it real easy for dudes to rack up coronavirus fines, violations and missed time.
Isn’t that where James Harden’s strip-clubs clubs are?
He said it was “a club”, not necessarily a strip-club.
Of course this is a guy who dated Khloe Kardashian, so who knows?
Magic City
I’d chuckle just a little if the players, after lobbying to have the all-star game, then boycott it.
Just plain greed man! No reason or need to hold the All-Star Game. And they still trying to do the Skills Competition??? Can’t they use these dates to make up some of these games that ain’t been played? Or is that too much of an inconvenience to ask multi-millionaires to do?
Always have to try and drag the HBCU’s into this now. What does “helping” HBCU’s have to do with playing the All-Star Game? Last I checked, the NBA has something like 31 Billionaire owners. The minimum salary for an NBA player is just south of $1 million per year. Chris Paul is gonna make like $40 million this year. If you combined the Athletic Department budgets for every single HBCU, that number will come to less than half of what Chris Paul will make this season. If all these NBA people want to truly “help” HBCU’s ….. Just write a check. Chris Paul wants to play the All-Star Game for HBCU’s. If he donates half of his salary this season to HBCU’s, it would DOUBLE their athletic department budgets. Again! Just write a check. Billionaire owners ….. Just write a check!!!
Why do you have such a problem with it? Why shouldn’t the players get to decide where the money goes?
They should HAVE ALREADY written fat checks! They want to support HBCU’s, but they want the fans to pay for it through the revenue generated from the event. They want to do that all the while they generate publicity for themselves over how much they care about the issue. Just write the checks! No need to play the game during a pandemic! They are trying to use the “reason” of helping the HBCU’s to justify playing an All-Star Game during a pandemic. Their sole reason to play the game is to make the television revenue. It’s all about the money. Period! These are billionaires and millionaires trying to cull their losses. Ticket prices don’t go down when profits go up. If you want to help HBCU’s just write the check.
…why can’t they do both? Still not sure what the issue is.
The issue is playing a meaningless All-Star Game during a worldwide pandemic. Just write checks to the HBCU’s. Don’t make them pawns in this game. “We need to play the All-Star Game in a pandemic to help HBCU’s”. No need to play the game. Just write the HBCU’s checks.
Top 3, Because one of the options is making fans pay, the other goads themselves to pay. Why the lack of understanding? Disagree if you will, doesn’t matter, I presume the millionaires involved can state their own cases. And some people will watch as if the results matter.
Any fan willing to pay for a limited capacity event (I imagine they will give tickets to front line workers anyway), doesn’t care where their money goes, they just want to see the game.
Otherwise people will be watching from home on tv, subsidized by advertisements.
Where do you get this “making the fans pay” angle? The all star game is happening regardless of where the money goes.
I was going to parallel the predicate ‘making’ two ways. But then when I changed the second ‘making’ to ‘goading’, I should have changed the first ‘making’ to ‘luring’. Luring the fans.
Did you know a ‘goad’ is a long pointed stick used to herd sheep? Not as cool as using a swift smart dog, but good for an analogy.
Anyway I hope the ASG gets dismissed. Too covid-risky. PG13 can send his check goaded by his own conscience.
Agee with Lil_D 100%.
Besides, all the players’ money already comes from converting the fan’s money into player salaries.
The game is more money than was there before, so the question of what to do with it needs to be answered.
If you don’t like what they’re doing with the money, don’t give them money.
Boy one must wonder ’bout all the hate in here… I mean the ASG is great entertainment & I am very happy that they will play it, if fans don’t wanna watch it, I can’t care any less, if bums like Fox don’t wanna play I don’t care, he ain’t getting selected anyway, he ain’t good enough to play, so no wonder he doesn’t want it… anyway this type of things are the ones that makes us forget about all the dreadful times thrust upon us just now, so watch the game & have fun, or don’t & keep your grumpiness going.
obviously there are some concerns, but if both sides want it then that’s what you do. i mean its one more game they have to play. doesnt drastically increase their chances of getting it.
If by “it” you mean COVID, then yes it does drastically increase their chances. When teams travel together, they come into contact with their teammates, and whomever their team mates have been in contact with. Let’s say every team member meets 1 other person per day. That means every team member is now exposed to all their teammates (14) plus the people their teammates met (14) plus the one they met (1). So normally they are exposed to potentially 29 possible infections in this manner, since it jumps indiscriminately to people 1-to-1. With 29 possible contacts, odds are one will have COVID, meaning there is a slight chance of transmission. The results of that have been seen, some teams have missed multiple games.
If you now have one player from every team (for the sake of argument) meeting for the ASG, you now have each team member exposed to the exposure of each represented team (29) times the number of teams (30), in other words 870 – guaranteed in a group of 870 people there are multiple infected people.
Then multiply this by the number of days of the ASG activities, adding more exposures, and then send everyone from the ASG back to their teams, with the risk of exposing (essentially) every player in the league.
Just not a good idea, in the same way having traditional Thanksgiving and other holiday gatherings was not a good idea, and we are just seeing numbers caused by that stupid idea to go down now, after a month (two months from the beginning of the holiday season).
Just name the “all-stars” so people can get their contractually obligated bonuses, run highlights of all the all-stars games ever televised with narration by the players via Zoom, and keep the season somewhat intact.
BTW have you ever tried to not meet more than one person in a day? It is not easy.
This is asking for trouble, all the best players from different teams traveling to one place and playing together and bringing what they catch back to their teammates, all for a offense happy exhibition game that has little entertainment value? See s pretty dumb, and could really go sideways.
I believe the NBA should have their players inside the bubble for the all star game and host fans. Because of this only just being one game. It would be a great choice to give fans the vaccine and start getting them back into arenas for the second half of the season.
I’m glad we can show how much interest we really have in this American sport. So some of the loudest don’t really care about Ball. Just care about being Loud. Nice to Know ….
There’s probably no other American sport. That is more intertwined with the American way. Pop culture, Fashion, Music, Health, Looks n beauty, human values. Than the America sport Basketball.
NBA All Star game is an event. The actual game is just part of it.
I’m so glad I got know all of you so much better. Enjoy the season if you actually even watch. Cause We know you will come here to vent about it.