The Charlotte Hornets may be one step closer to losing the All Star Game with no fix in sight for House Bill 2.
Good news for the Charlotte Hornets can never escape the not so good news. In the hours before the Hornets signed Nicolas Batum to a new deal there was another negotiation that was not going so well. The NBA and the Charlotte Hornets say that it is unlikely that the North Carolina legislature will make significant enough changes to House Bill 2 for the team and the league to endorse it.
House Bill 2 is the short name for the law that the North Carolina legislature passed in order to prevent the city of Charlotte from allowing transgender persons from using bathrooms they were comfortable with. There were other things that appeared in the bill including excluding LGBT persons from anti-discrimination protections.
The basic news is that there is nothing new here. There have been talks to revise the law, but nothing has materialized. The NBA has to decide on the fate on the NBA All-Star before the end of the summer. With a contentious election season at hand, it will be unlikely to be revised before November.
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So there are a couple of things that I think will happen. I expect that Jeremy Lin will sign elsewhere in free agency. I expect the NBA to pull the All Star Game. They have made too big a deal about this not to do something. The carrot can only dangle for so long.
That means that millions for renovations of Time Warner Arena were just for making it nice. It’s not like those renovations were targeted by things Adam Silver said about what was necessary to host an All Star Game or anything.
Losing the All Star Game at the very least will prevent the city from rallying around the league and potentially building up the fan base. Now the Hornets will have to grow fans the old fashioned way, by winning games.