The All-Star Game has been struggling to entice viewers for years. It has become an excuse to try absolutely anything, and fans have been missing the old-school days of competition between the best of the best. Unfortunately for everyone involved, you can’t force the players to play harder, and most players are not willing to risk injury for a glorified exhibition.
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NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has tried to find ways to fix the mid-season event, notably wanting to turn it into a USA vs. World format that the Rising Stars challenge adopted. While the idea is not something new, All-Star players are picked based on their merit, not the format. With one half of the players in the United States team and the other half having international players, it remains to be seen if Silver will be successful in his plan.
Silver wants to have the event earlier than February, also taking into account that the NFL is expanding into a 18-game season. He is looking at the NHL for inspiration as it managed to make it’s All-Star game successful with a similar USA vs World format.
He sees an opportunity to make the most out of a clash with the Winter Olympics on NBC, as basketball being an Olympic sport itself, could gain a lot of traction worldwide, giving the game a lot of viewership.
“Maybe there’s an opportunity to move that around to create interest at a different point in the season.
“…We’re going to be in the midst of the Winter Olympics on NBC. So the programming going into the All-Star Game will be Olympic competition, and our game will be leading back into the Olympics. So I think it’s only fitting, and on top of that we’ll be in L.A. where of course the ‘28 Summer Olympics are going to be. So that’s maybe more short term, not so much a rule change, but something we talked about at the GM’s meeting and we want to get right,” Silver said in a recent press conference.
Charles Oakley agrees with Silver but has some additional thoughts on how Luka Doncic would be affected.
Oakley was selected to be an All-Star only once, in 1994, but he took the honor seriously, playing hard defense and protecting the rim as others thought it would be a layup line. The now 61-year-old has taken a backseat since retiring but recently shared his thoughts about the event on the Nightcap podcast.
During the episode, Oakley went through the current playoffs landscape with hosts Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson and Shannon Sharpe before settling on some smaller-scale conversations. While he liked the potential change in teams for the All-Star Game, he did not have high hopes for the USA’s chances.
“Man, they gonna kill the US,” said Oakley, “Luka would be coming off the bench. I think they might get a little bit of traction off of that because the US guys and the European guys, the European guys are definitely going to play harder…”
Oakley has a point. The World team would have an absurd amount of talent. Four of the top five players in the league (Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) are all international players. Add in Victor Wembenyama, Karl-Anthony Towns and Franz Wagner, and that is a virtually unmatched group.
On the American side of things, with Jayson Tatum’s injury, it’d likely be up to Anthony Edwards, Donovan Mitchell and the old guard of LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant to put up monstrous numbers against their imposing opponents.
Even the teams may change, but the game will not. The purpose of the All-Star Game has never particularly been a competition but a celebration of the great players and the season they are having.
Nikola Jokic has made it known in the past that he doesn’t enjoy the All-Star Game. In a 2023 interview, he said, “It’s always going to be like this,” implying players aren’t going to change their lackadaisical attitudes or put more passion into their participation.
While the tweaks come, there will always be hope that things will improve, but until it does, people will keep proposing new ideas.
