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The 2018 NBA All-Star Draft has brought many changes to the usual format in hopes of re-invigorating the spirit of competition. Among them, is the non-televised draft in which the leading vote-getters from each conference; LeBron James and Stephen Curry, will pick among their peers to join their respective squads.
According to a report by Marc Stein of The New York Times, this idea was hatched with the full intention to televise it, but pushback from the players' union was enough to scuttle the plans. Per Stein's report, these are the primary three reasons why a televised draft was turned down.
1) The league does not want to risk embarrassing the last player chosen — or anyone else.
2) The league does not want to put the captains in a position where they might upset teammates by passing over them.
3) The players’ union objected. The union, presumably with considerable input from player agents, is the faction that actually put up the most resistance to letting all this play out in public. Some All-Stars want the draft televised, but some don’t. So the league acquiesced.
As much as the NBA League Office has ideas for their future plans, the NBPA has ideas of their own and having their players possibly strain relationships with others due to an All-Star competition wasn't in their book.
The league looked to make this a televised event, as yet another way to draw interest to TNT and NBA TV, two channels which they've directly attached to under the Turner umbrella.
The NBA Draft draws a decent amount of viewers, even if it is shortly after the NBA Finals, and the hoopla surrounding All-Star selections and snubs was one the league could benefit from to have yet an extra event to look forward to.
These are the same reasons the Celebrity Game, the Dunk Contest, and Three-Point Shootout were incorporated into what's now known as All-Star Weekend — transforming a one-night even into a weekend-long celebration.
Unfortunately, due to conflicting interests, the players weren't willing to go through making this spectacle public, despite some being eager to see it go live on their TV screen.
