There is probably no more revered resonance among NBA players outside of their own circle than former President Barack Obama. Obama, a prominent basketball fan who supports the Chicago Bulls, frequently hosted players in the White Area to play video games during his presidency. And when the players in the Orlando bubble in 2020 had to make a decision that in the future they should continue enjoying the capture of Jacob Blake, they turned to Obama for advice. Its resonance has weight in the world of basketball.
So with any luck, his complaint from Wednesday’s NBA All-Celebrity Sport will be discovered before the February tournament. The former president appeared on “The Young Man and the Three” podcast as a guest of Tyrese Haliburton, one of the show’s unused rotating hosts, and battled the young star over the way he and his contemporaries treated him. have covered the mid-season exhibition.
To sum up his criticism in one quote, Obama asked players to “take it more seriously” because, given the circumstances of the sport, he doesn’t plan to pursue it.
“They should be a little more proud of that All-Star Game,” Obama said. “It’s not like they don’t play during the summers. They know how to play in a way that, ‘OK, I’m not going to hurt anybody, I’m not going to take anybody out.’ But that All-Star Game is ruined, man.”
“It’s an insult to the game,” Obama added. “This is your business. This is your product. You don’t want people to think you’re out there, just half-assed.”
Extreme Time’s All-Celebrity Sport experienced a ridiculous 397 problems in total, but they didn’t come from high-flying action with fun highlights. The players simply had no problems with the defense. More than 58% of the shots taken in the game were three-pointers as the ball handlers were throwing the ball down the court and hitting jump shots. All of this came despite a major push by the league to convince players to play more difficult games. As Haliburton noted, Larry Chicken told them before the game to fight to entice them to play more challenging games.
Obama suggested that the reason players choose this kind of indifferent option to celebrity sports today is their huge salaries. Players don’t want to risk accidents in an exhibition sport when they have millions of dollars on the form, but they also won’t see as much need to sell the sport to fans in an exhibition tournament. Like All-Celebrity Sport because they are already winning a lot.
But Obama’s stance is almost certainly spreading throughout the basketball world. Nobody wants to practice such a non-competitive sport. If players won’t get much out of the game, fans won’t either.
