“I’m not sure how successful that was, but there were definitely some discussions and I guess guys are trying to figure out how to do that at the same time of having fun, being safe, being injury free. But I guess more solutions need to be had to figure that out.”
by horseshoeoverlook
15 Comments
I don’t thinks it’s fixable thing, no player wants to go extra hard during All-star weekend and if someone gets hurt everyone would immediately backpedal.
I think they should switch the format and do it like the Rising Stars game. It adds more incentive and competitiveness while still being fun.
The All-Star Game has been getting progressively worse again when it comes to actual effort. Tonight was pathetic. It’s not the format either. The first year of the captain format was great. Players seemed to actually want to win and it was competitive. Then they stopped caring. Which is probably why the NBA switched back to East vs. West.
A cash incentive to the winning team is the way to go.
I saw a clip on Twitter of Kobe talking about how guy are more competitive when they play pickup games at UCLA in the off season. So this whole argument about not wanting to get injured is bullshit. Why is a meaningless game in the summer more competitive than the All Star game?
They should let all stars bet on the ASG. Guys will play harder if they have an 8 leg parlay riding on their stats
The whole injury thing is so stupid. Every player plays in so many offseason runs (rico hines etc), they play way harder there than they do at the all star game
All they need is for all the players to put their $$$ in a pot and winner takes it all
Watch Lebron do a chase down block to afford Spotify premium
JB will fly around higher than his dunks if it’s a % of salary into the pot – he does have the largest contract in nba history!
What about moving All-Star weekend to the end of the NBA season??
I don’t know how they’d make the game more competitive, but they could instead look at it from an entertainment/showmanship angle. Try to hit crazy circus shots, have players imitate each other’s signature moves (it’d be funny if JB did Tatum’s sidestep 3, and purposefully travelled), play full-court press with your bigs, etc… I’m imagining a Globetrotter-esque show where the players can goof around. Some of the stuff Jokic was doing this game was hilarious lmao
Looked about like the regular season to me…
I rather the All Stars play 1v1 king of the ring tourney style. At least it’d be interesting.
Here me out: scrap the game as we know it. There are 24 all stars – randomly group them into 8 teams of 3. Each team has to designate a skill player, 3 point shooter, and trick shot player. Those are the events of Saturday night
1. Skills Challenge – get rid of the bs and go back to the og dribbling course. You could also add a rebounding comp to see who can grab the most rebounds and something like a defensive slide test, most side to side slides in 30s or something. Again, this comp would be done by each team’s skill designated player.
2. Trick shot contest – HORSE would take too long so have players take two trick shots each, with dunks being optional. Judges are legit trick shot pros. Best 3 go to final round and do two more trick shots.
3. 3pt Contest – pretty much the same format. Add a half court shot worth 5 points that the players can shoot if they have some extra time after their racks.
4. Finish the event with the Steph v Sabrina shootout – does not affect final scoring.
Saturday night Final – calculate final scores for each team based on how they ranked in the events, with winners of each event getting a score bonus for their team. Winning team gets X dollars donated to their charity.
Then on Sunday – teams do a 3v3 tournament with only winner and runner up getting money for their charities. Hopefully adds some competitiveness. First to 12, 1s and 2s, maybe add a deep shot worth 3. 8 teams, 3 rounds. “Halftime” occurs after first round. All-star game MVP is awarded based on the player who performed best throughout the tournament.
Time to stop pretending it will be more than it is. The selection is what matters, not the game.
The real problem is the league trying to squeeze every penny out of every game. Baseball may be super boring, but at least they don’t try to pretend every regular season game has to be epic. When you have things like double-headers and day games after night games, you automatically get stars resting and 7th starters embarrassing themselves and it is just accepted.
Sports leagues fall into the same nonsense as other business, thinking they need absurd growth levels. Why should we care about that? That is a problem for the rich players and owners. I’m happy just business as usual.
Start by not calling it a game. Call it the All Star Exhibition. This lowers expectations of it being competitive. No star player wants to go out and be a try hard while their team is on a mini vacation and risk their season by getting injured at that point of the year.
Scrap the in season tournament or meld it with a Divisional all star tournament.
Division team winner of tournament gets to host the following year (as determined by Division GMs) with a shared revenue within the division of the gate.
Conference champion from where division champion is from, gets home court in the finals.
The thing is the all star game is an artifact from an older time, back when you rarely saw star players outside your market. Before cable. Before streaming. There was a sense of pride players had because in part the NBA was still finding its footing and part of the deal was “just try to make the product look good for those who don’t see Dr. J or George Gervin everyday” and now that’s basically gone because we can see whoever we want whenever we want