NBA All-Star Weekend, February 14th - 16th, 2025

[Rafael122]

I've been watching some of the Nations Faceoff that the NHL is doing instead of the the all-star game and quite frankly, I think the NBA should adopt something similar but with a twist. Instead of it being Team USA, you take the top 12 American players that were voted by media/coaches/fans. Jokic would be voted as an all-star but it would still count towards his accolades despite not being on the All-Star team. Take the remaining 5 FIBA teams, top 2 teams get a bye. I'm not sure how this would be worked out, maybe the USA All-Stars take the place of Team USA. I would also make it a $10 million prize pool. Winning team gets $5 million, runner up gets $2 million, and then $3 million is split between the other 4 teams.


All-Star Thursday: Germany vs. Spain, and France vs. Canada
All-Star Friday: USA vs. Germany/Spain, and Serbia vs. France/Canada
All-Star Saturday: Rising Stars Game, 3 Point Contest, and Dunk Contest
All-Star Game: For the sake of this example, Team USA vs. France

[pancakes3]

There are a lot of problems with making actual stars play multiple competitive games:

1) Franchises don't want to do it because of the added wear and tear, and injury risk
2) Players don't want it because they want the break
3) Players don't want it because $5M split 12 ways is not going to move the needle for any of the players
4) You don't just need FIBA sign-off, but national team signoffs, including Team USA
5) You don't just need national team signoffs but the players for those international teams to also sign off.
6) Not everyone who's an NBA all-star is on Team USA (Gil in '06)

If it would work, I can see it working out in July or August (and in a non-FIBA/Olympic year) but not every year, in-season.

Actually, I think if the NBA sponsors something like this for non-FIBA/Olympic years, it'd be a great thing for Team USA, as it forces them to play more games together, which improves our biggest weakness: continuity/cohesiveness.

[Kanyewest]

It is too hard now for teams to defend the NBA all stars today than it was even in 2014. The space that the deep 3 point shot creates has made it extremely hard to defend the likes of Curry, Lillard, and Durant. Not to mention that the NBA all stars are not exactly chosen for their defense, it seems like a lot of them are designated hitters on the offensive end anyways.

By the way, it's funny that the Rising stars put up a much better effort than the Global stars. Probably because the Rising Stars as a team put up a much better defensive effort.

[FAH1223]

Read on Twitter

TNT really crashed out with their final All-Star broadcast. The league deserves blame. Only 30 minutes of basketball on a 3-hour telecast is wild.

I hope NBC does a better job. Since the entire All-Star weekend will be on broadcast TV + Peacock, the NBA will have more eyes on it rather than it just being on cable.

I prefer going back to East vs. West. Rookie vs. Sophmore game. And adding a 1v1 tournament or something.

[Kanyewest]

Ratings might have been lower than otherwise since it was going against SNL 50. And the dunk contest was going against US vs Canada in ice hockey