Controversial bathroom legislation in North Carolina costs Charlotte the All-Star game

Christian Rodriguez, Staff Writer

This past weekend was the 66th annual NBA all-star weekend. This year it was held in New Orleans instead of Charlotte due to the anti-LGBT bill. The NBA wrestled with officials of North Carolina, but they were forced to relocate the weekend to New Orleans once again.

According to an article on usatoday.com, the NBA expressed its disappointment and concern about the bill in March, and NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver was consistent in his message: if the law wasn’t changed, he had a difficult time envisioning the All-Star Game in a state where all fans didn’t feel included.

This law, which was passed during a special session in March, bans local municipalities from enacting non-discriminatory ordinances designed to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

This part of an NBA season is usually the most exciting for fans and players, but this year wasn’t as enjoyable for NBA fans at UC as it was in recent years.

UC junior Bennito Ayarza wasn’t too impressed with all-star weekend 2017. He claims that this year could’ve been better and noticed that they gave new-comers a chance to showcase their talents but it wasn’t quite as memorable as the big time all-stars in the game today.

“I wasn’t used to seeing this, I was looking forward to seeing big named players in the competitions,” Ayarza said.

Ayarza’s favorite part of the weekend was the actual game itself on Sunday night, but in his opinion, even that wasn’t very competitive. His least favorite part was the dunk contest.

“I know the first three quarters are supposed to be fun,” Ayarza said. “But even in the fourth quarter the players didn’t seem to want to win”

“The dunk contest was a disappointment as well,” Ayarza said.

Ayarza says that even though this was a record breaking all star weekend, due to Anthony Davis breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s all-star game scoring record of 42 points with 52 points, it was the least entertaining compared to previous years.

Another UC junior Carl Taylor wasn’t a fan of the weekend either as he says he felt let down and disappointed this year. The part he did enjoy was Friday nights World vs. USA game.

“I got to see up and coming stars go at it for 40 minutes,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s least favorite part of the weekend was the dunk contest. The contest was boring to him.

“There wasn’t any excitement, I feel like I saw all of those dunks before,” Taylor said. “I didn’t even know a couple of the players that were in the dunk contest to be honest.”

Taylor feels like this was probably the least entertaining all-star weekend in a while and is hoping for a better one next year.

“This was definitely not the best. If I had to grade it, I would give it a D+”

After the hassle of the bill in Charlotte, the NBA says that Charlotte will play host to the 2019 All-Star weekend.