This is veering a little bit off our Wisconsin sports stance. But hear me out. There will be Wisconsin sports athletes competing this weekend in Chicago. Therefore, I can talk about Kanye West. For those who do not know, he is my favorite artist of all-time. That’s right. When people ask me, what’s your favorite artist? The answer is always Kanye. Now, I have to dance on eggshells a bit after his comments about President Trump among other things he has said in the past few years. The gospel album he put out was my least favorite thing Kanye ever did. That said, it is a shame the NBA wants nothing to do with him and I’m assuming the feeling is mutual.

First, Kanye might be too big for the NBA All-Star weekend. The level to perform at All-Star festivities pales in comparison to playing the Super Bowl. Although he did perform with Rihanna in 2011 which was ‘Graduation’ years for Kanye and he was one of the biggest artists in the world. But even so, how great would it have been if Kanye did a concert on Thursday or at some club over the weekend as a major must-go event? Kanye is doing Sunday Service in Chicago on Sunday before the All-Star Game, so, maybe, he gets involved, but I’m guessing he will not have any sort of performance. Even though, Chance The Rapper and Common have worked with Kanye many times.

The second thing and likely the bigger issue is Kanye’s open support of President Donald Trump. If any league is anti-Trump, it is the NBA more than any of the four professional leagues. They likely have the least amount of Trump supporters in the stands, on the court, and in the front office. If West performed this weekend, there would be thinkpiece after thinkpiece about how it’s wrong of the league to promote Kanye when he supports Trump. There are zero reasons for the NBA to involved themselves in an obvious PR mess.

I won’t be watching the All-Star Game as I’ll be in Europe, but man, to think how good ‘Dark Fantasy’ would be to open his set makes me sad we don’t have the old Kanye.

Charlie.