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The NBA announced it came to an agreement with the Players Union and one of last year’s team captains sounds pretty excited about the event that could be.
LeBron James spoke to Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN about the league’s decision to televise the draft and, having already lived out the fantasy of fans everywhere, he says the spectacle will be worth watching.
“What’s bad about it? It’s All-Star Weekend,” James said when asked if televising the captains’ choices would be a good thing. “You got 24 of the best players in the world that’s going to make the team. It doesn’t matter if you’re first or last, you’re 24 of the best in the world at that point in time. I don’t think it’ll be bad. We’ll see.”
Not only does the NBA have plenty of star power to make the game itself worth watching, but its stars are also some of the most marketable personalities across all sports. Televising an event like this always made sense, making last year’s decision all the more annoying.
When asked about getting to be a captain last year, James said it was about as cool as you’d think.
”It was great, me and Steph, we had a great time drafting on the phone just picking,” said James, who now is in the Western Conference after signing with the Lakers. “Fantasy basketball for us. It was fun.”
There are still a few details to figure out for this year’s game. As it pertains to LeBron, for example, it’d be interesting to hear whether the league might put a rule in place that would preclude James and Stephen Curry from repeating as captains.
Another factor that might be of the utmost importance is whether the pool of stars the captains might be choosing from will be present as they’re chosen from. We need to see the look on the face of each guy when someone they think they’re better than gets picked before them. Without this stuff, the telecast just won’t be the same.
Still, at the very least, this was a step in the right direction. It was a huge mistake by the league not to televise the draft last year. It’s good to see they’ve come to recognize that and are moving forward accordingly.