The NBA All-Star Weekend is happening this weekend, February 14 to 16, and there’s a lot at stake. Towards the end of last year, the league announced a drastic change in format for the All-Star Game, the crown jewel of the weekend’s festivities.
Instead of the traditional game of basketball between the best in the East and West, a mini tournament will take place between four teams. This season’s 24 All-Star selections will be divided into teams of three. Former players turned commentators Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith will each draft and manage a team.
A fourth team will be composed of the winners of the Rising Stars Game, the annual showcase of top NBA rookies, sophomores, and NBA G League standouts. They will be managed by WNBA legend Candace Parker.
Each game is a race to 40 points. Two teams will meet in one semifinal. The remaining two will play in another. The winners of each heat will then play in a final game for all the glory.
On paper, the prospect of more games between the league’s best players might sound entertaining. But the NBA’s All-Star Game has been less than stellar in recent years due to players not taking the competition seriously. With the NBA’s announcement to replace the All-Star Game with a mini tournament between four teams, could it be the change that ignites the competitive fire in the league’s best players?
Make-or-Break
Last year, the East beat the West by a staggering score of 211 to 186. Surely, such high scores for both teams would make for a thrilling game, right? Not when you’re getting points from wide open threes and uncontested dunks.
Despite both teams combining for 174 points in the paint, both teams also combined for a total of three blocked shots and three personal fouls. That basically turned the game into a shootaround and layup line that just so happened to be scored.
It’s more exciting watching NBA players posting their off-season routines on YouTube where they get their friends, call up players from around the league, rent out a gym, and play pickup basketball. Nothing’s on the line in those runs except for bragging rights. No team standings affected, no playoff implications for winning and losing, just fast-paced, competitive basketball. Somehow, it seems like the league’s trying to capture that energy. But at this point, it feels like an office that’s trying to inject some fun into a team-building weekend no one really wanted.
Kevin Durant absolutely hates the new format. Anthony Edwards sees All-Star Games as a break and doesn’t think anybody comes into one to really compete. Online reactions have been mixed. Some welcome the change, others don’t, while a few see it as the NBA trying to throw stuff at a wall in the hopes of something sticking.
If it’s seen as a break for some players, maybe it’s time to treat it like a break. Scrap the game altogether. Name the standout players of the season and give teams a week off; use that time to recalibrate schedules and eliminate back-to-back games. The regular season should always be the priority anyway. Given how much revenue an NBA All-Star Weekend makes, it’ll never happen.
Pay-For-Play Era
So, what can be done? Do you focus on spicing up the skills competitions? The Stephen Curry versus Sabrina Ionescu three-point shooting contest was fun to watch. That might be a good place to start. Do you bring in dunkers from all over to take on the NBA’s best high flyers? Surely, no NBA player is going to want to get shown up by someone who’s not in the league.
Or maybe, should All-Stars be paid more? Much like the in-season tournament where players of the winning teams get $500,000 each, should the winning All-Star team selections get paid a certain amount as well? Certain cash prizes could also be given out to top defensive players and the All-Star MVP.
Going by the precedent set by the in-season tournament — which by itself was already a desperate attempt to make the regular season more watchable — maybe players want to be compensated more to give some semblance of effort in an exhibition game. Perhaps we’ve truly entered the NBA’s pay-for-play era.
Whatever the format, whether it’s one-on-one, three-on-three, or a round-robin mini tournament, if a game between the NBA’s biggest stars keeps turning out to be a snoozefest, no one wins. Not the East, not the West, and certainly not the fans.
