INGLEWOOD, California: The NBA is trying its fourth All-Star Game format in four years this weekend as it attempts once again to answer one of the bigger existential questions in professional basketball.
How do you get both the players and their fans to care about this midseason showcase?
The newest scheme appears to be the most promising yet, at least according to people like Victor Wembanyama who still believe this game should matter. A team of veteran American All-Stars, a team of younger US players and a third team representing the rest of the world will play a round-robin tournament of 12-minute games Sunday, with the top two meeting again in the final.
It’s bold and different, but will it make the All-Stars give more effort than they’ve provided in these glorified pickup games over the past two decades? And will this setup draw in TV viewers who are already in a nationalistic mood from watching the Winter Olympics?
“I think it definitely has a chance to, and the reason is simple, in my opinion,” Wembanyama said Saturday. “We’ve seen that many of the best players have been increasingly foreign players, so there is some pride on that side. I guess there is some pride also on the American side, which is normal. So I think anything that gets closer to representing a country brings up the pride.”
Others aren’t so sure, to put it bluntly.
“With the teams split up, you don’t really know who you’re playing with or what the score is,” Kawhi Leonard said. “I’d rather it just be East and West, and just go out there and compete and see what the outcome is. I don’t think a format can make you compete.”
“Yeah, it is what it is at this point,” Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards said with a smirk.
This new concept is debuting in the NBA’s newest arena: Intuit Dome, the futuristic $2 billion basketball shrine opened in 2024 by Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. All-Star Saturday featured Damian Lillard’s third career victory in the 3-Point Contest, followed by Miami’s Keshad Johnson winning the Slam Dunk Contest.
While the players got a welcome weekend in the Southern California sun, the league is optimistic they’ll also provide a more entertaining product on Sunday.
“I’ve had conversations with our guys ... and our guys are coming to play,” said Detroit’s J.B. Bickerstaff, who will coach the younger American team. “They’re going to set a tone. I know that for sure, and I know that the group we have is a group of competitors. So I think the new format is going to help. It’s going to raise the level of competition and put some pride in the game, and then you’ll see the stars that are here being the best of themselves.”
The distinctions on these rosters are more than a bit fungible. The younger Americans’ team is called the “Stars,” and the older players are “Stripes,” but injury dropouts have blurred the lineups.
The World team has a powerhouse lineup with Wembanyama, Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic — but it also includes Norman Powell, a born-and-raised Californian who plays for Jamaica internationally, and Karl-Anthony Towns, a New Jersey native who represents his mother’s Dominican Republic.
The NBA has repeatedly changed its All-Star format in the past decade while the sport wrestles with declining interest from both television audiences and the players themselves. The NBA ditched the long-standing East vs. West conference battle in 2018 to allow captains to pick their teams for six seasons, only to go back to the East vs. West format for a year before introducing a four-team tournament last year in San Francisco.
That tournament drew decidedly mixed reactions while Stephen Curry won the MVP award in his home arena. The NBA liked the mini-tournament format enough to bring it back for another year but with the added twist of nominally dividing the players by nationality.
With this iteration, the league is hoping that national pride and novelty will lead to entertaining hoops — but injuries have taken a toll even before the ball is tipped.
Curry won’t be playing for only the third time in the past 13 years, while the World team will be without Giannis Antetokounmpo and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, two former league MVPs. But Leonard will represent the hosts, while Luka Doncic and LeBron James will play despite injury concerns.
James is appearing in his record 21st All-Star Game after being selected for the 22nd time in his unprecedented 23-year career.
The changes could spark excitement, but they’re also a bit confusing to fans who grew up watching the East take on the West each winter. That includes Pistons All-Star guard Cade Cunningham, who doesn’t think he’s really had the true All-Star experience yet.
“I grew up just wanting to be in the All-Star Game, (and) my only two years now, it’s been these different formats,” Cunningham said. “I would like to experience the East versus West. I want to be able to experience what all the greats played in, but I’m just playing the cards I was dealt. I’m sure it will come back eventually.”