Barack Obama spoke for all of us and pulled no punches, telling Tyrese Haliburton, “Y’all got to have a little more pride in that All-Star Game.”
“Y’all got to have a little more pride in that All-Star Game… It’s an insult to the game.” -Obama confronts Tyrese about the NBA All Star Game pic.twitter.com/ynmGQaJfBm
— TheYoungManAndTheThree (@OldManAndThree) October 23, 2024
The All-Star Game has been a disappointment for more than a decade now. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has echoed what Obama said — remember how he handed out the trophy after last year’s game, “To the Eastern Conference All-Stars, you scored the most points. Well, congratulations.” — and done so for years. The All-Star Game has devolved into a non-competitive, hard-to-watch culmination of a weekend celebrating the sport.
Silver hasn’t given up on the game. Yet. And he and the league have another solution:
This year’s All-Star Game is likely to feature four teams of eight players — three “All-Star” teams plus the team that wins Friday’s Rising Stars Challenge for rookies and sophomores — competing in a mini-knockout tournament, a story broken by Shams Charania of ESPN. The report says the league is “in serious discussions” about this format change.
League officials discussed the new format on Friday with the Competition Committee consisting of governors, team executives, players, coaches and union personnel, sources said. The four teams would face each other in matchups — for instance, Team 1 versus Team 3 and Team 2 versus Team 4 — and the winners move on to the final round of the tournament.
This is not unlike what the NHL has done with its All-Star Game, although that league went even further and made it a 3-on-3 game, an entertaining exhibition that doesn’t resemble the sport during the regular season and playoffs. Silver is trying to avoid what the NFL ultimately had to do — there is no Pro Bowl game anymore, just a flag football exhibition and some skills competitions.
NBA players — including Stephen Curry, whose Warriors will host this season’s All-Star Game in San Francisco come February — and team executives have been meeting with league officials to brainstorm ideas that could inject some life and competitiveness into the game. The league tried having captains pick teams playground style, which was entertaining but did nothing to save the game itself. The NBA has increased the cash donated to charity on behalf of the winning team, but with no effect.
The only good All-Star Game in the last decade was 2020 in Chicago and that had a lot of things come together. First, it was a close game and the first year of the Elam/Target score ending, which was different. Far more importantly, the game was weeks after the tragic death of Kobe Bryant (and his daughter Gigi, plus seven other souls on that helicopter) and there was a vibe of “we have to play hard to honor Kobe” that has been lacking otherwise.
What drew the most interest by far at last year’s All-Star Game — and will be back this season in some format — was the Stephen Curry vs. Sabrina Ionescu 3-point shootout. All-Star Saturday night has been the best part of the weekend for a long time and the shootout simply added to it.
Will another format change, this time a fast-paced knockout round with smaller teams, change the dynamic around the Sunday game? I’m skeptical, but also it’s worth a shot. The league has to try something. The reality is the All-Star players are trying to avoid injury, plus it’s the day before the league takes most of a week off. Nearly everyone in the All-Star Game has a charter flight on a nearby runway waiting to whisk them off to someplace warm. The entire game has the feeling of the last day of school.
Does changing the format change that dynamic from players? The league has to try something, why not this?
