The NBA All-Star Game is where the 24 best basketball players in the world come together. 12 from the Eastern Conference and 12 from the Western Conference. The sentiment is that it gives the fans a weekend where all the best players come together and compete against each other at a high level. That sounds like fun yeah?! Well… It sounds cool on paper but in recent years, it hasn’t been that much fun. The NBA All-Star Game today is an exhibition where players just showcase their dunks due to the lack of defense or shooting a trillion 3-pointers. Of course, it makes sense that the players won’t give the same intensity as a regular game because there are no real stakes, and why risk injury? That part is understandable. However, it has gotten to a point where it has become unwatchable because players do not play a lick of defense anymore.
The All-Star game format was East vs West for the longest time. However, in 2017, the game hit an all-time low when the 2 teams combined for 374 points as the West beat the East 192-182. This is certainly not the result Adam Silver would’ve liked to see but if we’re being honest, he cannot be fully surprised. Here is a little chart displaying the trend of overall scoring in the all-star game since 2004:
Here are the corresponding 3-point attempts per game from 2004 to last year according to Statmuse. As expected there is a correlation.
As you can see, the overall trend is upward in terms of scoring. This trend makes sense as players now are more skilled and as a result, the 3-point shot is so prominent since all 5 positions can stretch the floor now but the jump from 2015 to 2016 is eye-popping. Then it was no different in 2017. This shows that in these particular games, the energy and care factor from these players were lower than normal. People who watched the games would agree.
So what happened in 2018? Commissioner Silver, to his credit, made some changes and changed the format from East vs West to Team Captain format. Playground style. The 2 highest-voted all-star players from each conference would be named. In 2018, the two Captains were Lebron and Steph. With players getting input on how to build their rosters, the hope was that pride would play more of a factor and some form of competition would return to the game. In addition to that the winning team would get to donate a higher amount to the charity of their choice! And guess what, it worked for the 2018 All-Star Game as team Lebron took down team Steph 148-145. The game came down to the wire where Lebron and KD were hustling relentlessly on defense to prevent Steph from hitting a game-tying 3. After the buzzer sounded, Lebron and company celebrated like they had won a championship. So it showed how much it meant to these guys. So Adam Silver solved the All-Star game, right?
Not quite. The game went right back to what it was in 2017 where it became a shooting exhibition and the teams combined for 340+ points. The chart is capped at 2019 because starting from 2020, the All-Star Game switched to a target score format. The team with the higher score after 3 quarters would have to score just 24 points in the 4th to win the game. For example, Team Giannis led 133-124 for 3 quarters so the target score for both teams is 157 since 133 + 24 = 157. This rule was implemented to honor Kobe after his unfortunate passing. The game itself was very good in 2020 as both teams competed hard in the 4th. But once again, it was a one-hit wonder(although 2022 wasn’t bad either as it was as Lebron hit a game-winner in his hometown of Cleveland).
In 2021 it was 170-150, 2023 had 184-175, and 2024 had 211-186. 2024 has the highest-ever score combined.
In 2025 they are going a different route. Kenny, Shaq, and Charles will choose teams. It will be a tournament style where the teams will battle it out in multiple games. So these 3 teams, along with the winning team of the rising stars NBA team will be all part of a mini-tournament. On Sunday, it will be Kenny’s team vs Charles’s team and Shaq’s team vs Candace’s team(rising stars). It’s certainly a new look. Will it lead to a better product on the court? We will just have to find out and see.
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