Nick Friedel

But, you know, Steph ain't going to be in that game.

Go back to last year.

LeBron was there.

LeBron was like, nah, I'm good.

He didn't want to stand out there and, you know, take a couple shots and throw some passes.

So when you don't have the buy-in from the biggest of stars, and that has been over and over and over again for years and years...

you get to the place that they're in right now.

It's really sad because, Layla, I saw a quote, and it's Mack McClung, the guy who keeps winning it,

who everybody kind of rallies around in the moment and then forgets about for the rest of the year.

But it's like he didn't want to upset the NBA guys who wanted to participate because they didn't want to go against the G League.

I know the three of us have talked about this for several years now, but it's what concerns me the most is somebody who makes their living

off of the NBA, covering the league for as long as I have.

The product itself, and this is much deeper and broader than just the All-Star game or All-Star weekend, it's just not very good right now.

The regular season NBA product...

is not very good.

That is reality.

When you go to these games, even when the Stars are playing, you're not sure how hard they're going to play.

And on so many nights, you're not sure exactly who's going to play.

And when that starts to happen, and you erode the trust of the public that has supported you for so long, well, you've got some problems.

And the league has some serious problems.