SB Nation NBA Reacts: Most Wizards and other team fans don’t want to see an All-Star Game this year

Hello everyone, some of you have criticized the titles I wrote on SB Nation Reacts. That’s mainly because .... “EVERYONE KNOWS THAT MOST WIZARDS FANS HAVE LOST CONFIDENCE IN THE TEAM!”

You’re right. We aren’t confident in the team, even after the Wizards’ Wednesday win.

So I decided to mix it up this week by starting with the national questions in this week’s survey which were on the NBA All-Star Game.

National Results: Most fans don’t want to see an All-Star Game this year

This week’s questions were centered around the NBA All-Star Game. Regarding the first question, 61 percent of fans nationwide didn’t think an All-Star Game should happen at all this year, even though voting for teams is going on at the moment.

SB Nation

Anecdotally, we know why most fans don’t want an All-Star Game. As James Carville would say, “It’s the coronavirus, stupid!”

Many January games have been postponed including six consecutive Wizards games, were postponed because of team outbreaks of the coronavirus. In fact, our own Kevin Broom figured out loud in the comments that the Wizards would have among the worst outbreaks this season earlier this month.

Also, an NBA All-Star Game would be a superspreader event, likely in a market with lax enforcement on facemasks and social distancing. This year’s All-Star Game is expected to be in Atlanta, Ga., a market in a state where there are no limits on restaurants, where night clubs can operate, albeit at a reduced capacity and where face masks are effectively optional. But you might push back on me mentioning this when players aren’t supposed to do these things. Fair enough.

Here’s where things get interesting. State Farm Arena, the Hawks’ venue allows fans to sit courtside, not just in the bleachers. I’m not sure how fan seating will be for the All-Star Game specifically since nothing is set is stone. But if there are fans, I bet some of them will go to various events in the city at the clubs or places that are taking it easy with the pandemic.

As of today, the United States has over 26.7 million cases and 456,000 deaths. While cases are going down nationally and in Georgia, there are more contagious variants entering which could spike cases up again. Vaccines are available, but it will likely be months from now when the average person can get a shot.

I personally am against having a game for those reasons, though other people may cite players’ risk of injury or perhaps they don’t care about an All-Star Game anyway. But don’t take my word for it since I’m just an “Average Joe.” Los Angeles Lakers guard LeBron James is against it because of the pandemic and the season that he had to start sooner than he would have liked, because the Lakers were back on the court to defend their championship 72 days after the last game of the 2020 Finals.

And yes, there was another question. If there was an All-Star Game, fans were split about whether to have skills competitions like the three point or dunk contests with 51 percent in favor of them.

SB Nation

Wizards fan confidence: The drop was back down to 13 percent!

SB Nation

Fan confidence went back down in our latest survey to tie its lowest level this season. The survey concluded before the Wizards’ win against the Heat on Wednesday, so it’s possible that the most fickle fans would be confident in the team just because of one game where Washington played good defense, especially in the second half.

For me, I’m not confident in this team until I see a sustained positive trend. That isn’t happening right now.

If you haven’t signed up for SB Nation NBA reacts, do so by clicking on the link below.