Phoenix Suns: How playing without fans may affect 3 star players

Kelly Oubre Jr.

If there is one player who will be negatively affected by the bizarre environment of a small gym with no fans, it will most certainly be Kelly Oubre. While Oubre himself brings far more individual energy than any of his teammates, you have to wonder how much of that is for himself and the team, and how much is for the fans.

I mean, there will be fans (probably millions of them) watching on television. Even non-basketball-holics will be craving live professional sports so badly, the ratings for these games will be monumental. However, when Kelly can’t see them or hear them, it will be interesting to see how much (if at all) he tones down his fantastic antics.

Will he still signal first-downs? Do mid-game push-ups? Head bob? If you think about it, it brings up a philosophical question. If there are no fans to which he can blow kisses, do the kisses still get blown?

That leads to the next question, how will it affect his play? Is he the type of guy who needs that crowd energy to play at his highest level? Something tells me he might, and it could be a huge adjustment for him to get to that full-blown Tsunami Papi mindset.