As the NBA searches for ways to revive interest in its All-Star Game, one concept that gets frequent mention is a U.S. vs. the World format. Several international players expressed their support for that idea after Sunday’s mini-tournament, writes Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.
“I would love to. My opinion is that it’s more purposeful,” said Victor Wembanyama, who figures to be a regular at the All-Star Game for the next decade or so. “There’s more pride in it. More stakes.”
Nine-time All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo was even more enthusiastic about the idea in his post-game press conference.
“I would love that. Oh, I would love that,” he said. “I think that would be the most interesting and most exciting format. I would love that. For sure, I’d take pride in that. I always compete, but I think that will give me a little bit more extra juice to compete.”
As Reynolds points out, the NHL has been able to generate enormous passion by scrapping its traditional All-Star format and replacing it with the 4 Nations Face-Off Tournament. Saturday’s showdown between the U.S. and Canada in Montreal stoked an intense national rivalry and featured three fights in the first nine seconds of the game.
According to Reynolds, some NBA officials are watching the NHL’s success and considering how it could be adapted to basketball. There aren’t enough All-Star players from specific nations to divide them into four teams, but a matchup of American and international stars could create a fresh look for the annual showcase.
“Sometimes things just get old and kind of need a facelift,” Draymond Green said. “I know they’ve done different things to try to get it going. I think what’ll be interesting to see is how this 4 Nations thing turns out in hockey. If that turns out great, might have to peek an eye.”
Reynolds notes that this year’s rosters already feature six international All-Stars, with Wembanyama and Antetokounmpo joined by Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Pascal Siakam and Alperen Sengun. Luka Doncic would likely be there if not for the injuries have plagued him this season, and Reynolds points to Karl-Anthony Towns, who plays for the Dominican Republic in international competitions, as another addition.
However, filling out the World roster could mean adding a few players who aren’t as deserving of All-Star status. It would also take away four spots from American players, who make up roughly 70% of the NBA, which is why there’s reluctance to try it out.
“Not to say we couldn’t figure out a way around this, but to the extent we want to have a fair process for picking All-Stars, if you’re picking half the players from a 30% pool and the other half from a 70% pool, it might not be fair to the players,” commissioner Adam Silver said recently. “So, that’s one thing we’re looking at.”
Just do it!
Just cancel the entire All-Star weekend.
Do it like hockey. Four teams. But instead of four different countries, have one world, one California or West Coast, including the blazers and one south and one north east?
Or one world and one western US one Eastern US and somehow find a fourth team. Maybe separate Canada and form their own team?
As one player says in the article above there has to be pride to play for and just being an all-star east versus west that doesn’t really apply It seems. The All-Star game has sucked recently.
Four teams: the three we had (one global team, Americans split into younger and older teams), plus one team of washed ex-all stars: Klay, Lowry, Beal… Then they can’t complain about non-all star caliber players taking the spots
USA vs World will not change a thing. Luka will still chuck up 3’s and play zero defense. The behavior of this generation of NBA players is not going to change. Even regular season games are starting to look like all-star style play: tons of 3’s and limited defense. Comparing this to the NHL format of 4 Nations is idiotic. In the case of the NHL, the rosters mirror more of an Olympic style bracket with individual countries represented, versus the generic ‘World’ approach. That is where the pride factor comes from. A collection of non-USA all-stars is NOT going to rally behind some made for tv emotional theme.
You can’t force an alcoholic to quite drinking because you want them to. They have to want it for themselves to effectively change. Same goes for the NBA players. We can force any new format we want, hoping they change their approach to the event for the better. Until they take personal ownership in this process, you will continue to see the same crap we saw last night. Half court three pointers mid game, along with wide open lay-ups in ‘crunch time.’
Possibility? Each team sends an “All Star” representative to the pool. The pool is then divided into four teams. Each of those teams is given one sword, one shield, and one amulet. Spells are worth three points. Blocks are worth two. “Kills” are worth one. Now take those four teams and put each in a predesignated hotel from the host city. Tickets will be sold for the playing area in the city. Last man standing will claim four amulets, four shields and four swords. Having generated additional limbs and “hulked out” he wields all shields and swords against the final boss… Ariana Grande in a suitcase carried by the alive version of Adam Silver. No basketball will be involved.
At least Sunday was actually semi watchable. Dray was on the broadcast complaining that Tatum or whoever couldn’t challenge the scoring records etc. like anyone cared or wanted to watch the trash product that can produce superficial scoring numbers. Ratings were at a crossroads and I liked that we actually saw some effort and defense.
Break it down to “where did player go to high school” and then have West, East, Flyover and International. Rep your hood all-stars! Use the player’s personal location instead of his team’s = genius. Real hoopers know that this will decide on a street pickup game level, who is the best!
Then in another year we can use this same format but do cities, and have LA vs NYC, Chicago vs Atlanta etc. (prob need a “the rest” team here to cover guys who deserve to be all-stars but do not have a city represented). But you get the gist of it…
R.Alston and And1 Streetball is exactly what the fans are screaming for!! Sorry Davey, this is a horrible take. That style of play is exactly what we are seeing now. That doesn’t fix anything.
NBA players playing streetball = bad
NBA players playing college style = good
Can you see this is a you thing? My solution brings the answer “what area grows the most/best hoopers?” which is a longtime question many have asked. LA vs NYC in basketball is popcorn gif basketball, on many levels.
Let’s scrap the ‘it’s a you’ thing, and take parts of each reply to advance the conversation. You make an interesting point about college style play. So let’s brainstorm. If we want to advance this towards a tournament style event, (which I oppose), how about this for teams:
1. College alum conferences from the west.
2. College alum conferences from the east.
3. G-Leauge / no College.
4. Euro or other league.
(Maybe substitute one of these by having a current college all-star team compete.
That should light a fire under these guys to play serious ball…..don’tget beat by the college kids. Maybe in this scenario, winner gets additional spots on Olympic roster).
Now….let’s take some of that advertising money the event brings in, and make the payout for the winning team a few million dollars. That money goes to the conference of the college the game MVP attended. Or to the Euro league organization of MVP winner, or G league development, etc.
The obvious flaws with any style of tournament, is you impact who gets selected as an All-Star, as you now focus the attention to filling out rosters vs taking the best players from the 1st half of the season.
So, back to square one. The culture within needs to change. And that starts with the players wanting this. We can’t want it for them.
BTW….my vote is a traditional East vs West game. And tell these babies to man up and play.
Off the rip, you got it wrong. I never said “use college teams”, I said to base it off “where they literally went to high school” or “college style” aka “play the game so the players do not rep their current NBA team” not explicitly the colleges the players attended themselves – that’s EXTREMELY important to my scheme. My scheme is to prove what city/state BIRTHS the most hoopers, college is irrelevant to this MAIN POINT.
You wrote all those words while getting the premise wrong, thats a bummer!
I never once said you said use college players. Please, copy and paste where that happened. Your use of quotation marks is very misleading in terms of context.
Instead, I took your direct line of NBA players playing college style = good, and tried to spin that into a different idea. Your reference to college, made me think there is an angle here that isn’t being thought of.
Good grief….lesson learned that everything is personal to you, or all replies require a personal jab. Funny, your last sentence sums up your efforts at responding to me.
please just abolish all star game already
And the NBA too
I also like the idea of a one on one tournament.
10 best fours and fives, 10 best wings, and 10 best 6-4 and under.
Have those three groups come out with their winner and then do these three guys for the final winner of the one on one tournament.
That would be fantastic bragging rights for the guys and not just at the very end. You’d have the best big man one on one winner, the best little guy one on one winner, etc., but then also the final champion.
That would be interesting.
So you want to see a game of 3 pt H-O-R-S-E with a person pretending to play defense?
You have to adjust the scoring to make things compatible for all. Everything is a one and play to seven, losers out.
What I’m trying to do is suggest things that would spark a person‘s pride into performing with a little more zeal than is currently presented on All-Star weekend.
Also just throwing stuff against the wall to see if anything sticks? Smarter minds than mine have tried different things recently and not much has worked so let’s see how it goes.
Or.., you could still have threes and twos because the little guys will defend little guys and the big men will guard big men.
Maybe just the final round would be adjusted to ones? I don’t know just throwing stuff out there.
But I do like a one on one tournament. Who wouldn’t want to be king of the court or win the tournament out of all the All-Star position peers?
I appreciate the effort in looking for a solution. I do. Unfortunately the problem has nothing to do with the format of the event, but the mindset of the players. Until these guys start take a long hard look inwards and acknowledge what the main issue is, the rest is just reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. The question we should be asking the commish and the players is simple: do you hear the fans? And if so, why does that not resonate?
Pay them much less from now on. Literally 10 million less for the pricey SUPERSTARS and offer money for the winning team.
They make so much now which is why they could care less while all the past generations didn’t get paid that good but they tried unlike today’s overrated NBA
Shoot a three and then let me shoot three. We don’t care about basketball but we only love counting our money
Who cares about the “best” players making the allstar game or not if they refuse to play hard. Give me an international player who may not be one of the top players over Lebron cancelling an hour before the game. With this format the players would have zero excuses after the Four Nations had the top NHL players playing like game 1 of the finals when they play as many games, hockey is harder on the body, and they get paid less to do it.
“Featured 3 fights in the first 9 seconds” in an all star event lmfao.. that was more about Canada’s disgust about becoming the 51st than winning the game. Their rightful anger showed, as they won those fist fights too.
And the U.S. rightfully won the game too, humpty dumpty.
NBA is afraid of that….
A US vs World event isn’t likely to change much. NBA players, generally, give uneven effort in regular season games, and there is a rationale for it, one that suggests player effort is a finite commodity and the season is too long. Against that backdrop, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the same players to care about an exhibition game held in the middle of the season. Based on how little the players care about the result of the game, you’d think eliminating it would make sense. But the current NBA heirarchy is composed of attorneys, so that’s not happening.
NBa doesnt want that. USA would get embarrassed.
It should be a privilege, not a right, to play in the All-Star game. So how about this:
-Players on the losing team are ineligible to play in the All-Star game for a three-year period
-Said players can still be voted in as All-Stars and honored before the game, but would not be eligible to play in the game itself
-Maybe the embarrassment of not being able to participate would motivate players to play hard
Another option would be to have the All-NBA voters decide which players should remain eligible to play in future All-Star games, with the threshold being 2/3rds support. I say the All-NBA voters because fans might vote along popularity lines rather than worthiness lines.
Maybe not the best ideas, but the privilege angle is the only one I could see working given the reality of things.
I like where you are going with this. Only one flaw I see: still allowing players who cannot play in subsequent years to still be voted in, plays right into their hands……contract bonus for making an all-star team + the weekend off.
I like the privilege angle. Is there a way to tie in All-Star loses to Olympic roster eligibility? (Before the haters come to attack – I am implying US Olympic roster only).
That’s true. I just wasn’t sure if the league would have the appetite for preventing fans from being able to vote for a subset of the game’s biggest stars. Thought this could represent a more realistic compromise of sorts.