All-Star Game during the NBA All-Star Game 2016 at the Air Canada Centre on February 14, 2016 in Toronto, Ontario. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement.

The NBA threatened that if North Carolina’s controversial HB2 law wasn’t changed, Charlotte would lose the 2017 All-Star Game. The law wasn’t modified enough for the NBA’s liking, and on Thursday, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo reported that the league would be pulling the All-Star Game from Charlotte. The likely destination for the game will be New Orleans, but several other destinations are still in the hunt.

Without any movement by state legislators in North Carolina to change newly enacted laws targeted at the LGBT community, the NBA is pulling the 2017 All-Star Game out of Charlotte, league sources told The Vertical.

The NBA is focused on the New Orleans’ Smoothie King Center as the host for All-Star Weekend and the All-Star Game on Feb. 19, league sources told The Vertical.

For now, there are still other cities trying to lure the All-Star Game, sources said.

The status of the All-Star Game has been in question for months now. In April, Charles Barkley said that Charlotte should lose the game. At the end of last month, the NBA and the Hornets jointly released a statement in opposition to the bill.

The bill is also having an effect on the collegiate ranks. The ACC said they were “keeping an eye” on the bill in April. Last week, Albany canceled a basketball game at Duke because of a ban against state travel to North Carolina because of the bill.

And just this week, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski called the bill “embarrassing”, while NC State Mark Gottfried and Elon’s Matt Matheny also had strong words in opposition to the bill.

The state of North Carolina called the NBA’s bluff – but the NBA wasn’t bluffing. Another domino will end up falling after this one, but it will be quite interesting to see which domino that is.

[Yahoo]

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.