NBA All-Star Game to return to East vs West format?
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has mentioned the possibility of returning to the previous format in the All-Star Game.
Early morning on February 20, 2017 in Spain, Anthony Davis raised the All Star MVP award (now renamed Kobe Bryant trophy), in recognition of his performance as the best player of the All Star Game with 52 points. At the time, Davis was the star of the Pelicans. That weekend, by coincidence, Abrines and Willy, old team mates at Barça, were in the same team as the previous two MVPs, Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. At the time, few would have imagined this would be the last edition of the All Star Game as a confrontation between East-West conferences. In recent years, criticism about the players’ lack of intensity has led the NBA to begin considering a big change in the current format. Adam Silver spoke about the possible return to the format that from 1951 to 2017 was held uninterruptedly, with the exception of the 1999 season due to the lockout, although it ended up being held in 2002.
The current format
In 2018, the captains’ team format was born. The two players most voted by fans to participate in the All Star would become captains of the two teams. As a draft, the captains would choose their teammates, who had previously been chosen to participate in the match, until they formed their team. In addition, each team will choose a charity to which they will donate as a result of the prize received for winning the match. The first captains were LeBron and Steph Curry, which ended with a victory for the Cavaliers player, as well as the MVP award. The following year with the same format, Giannis replaced Curry as captain, in the edition in which Nowitzki and Wade would join the teams symbolically, since both players were set to retire at the end of the season.
In 2020, the same captains, but with changes to the format with modifications to the rules and scoring. The team that scored the most points during three first 12-minute quarters received a cash prize, which was donated to a charity. The last quarter, without a stopwatch, is decided in favor of the first team to reach or exceed a “target score”. The final target score is determined by taking the total cumulative score of the leading team for three quarters and adding 24 points.
In the next three years the changes would continue and criticism about poor performance and defensive involvement would lead to a possible change in format. The audience is proof of that - the 2023 NBA All-Star Game with the smallest audience in history, averaging just 4.6 million viewers, 27% less than the previous year’s edition and 22% less than the 2021 match, considered, until now, the NBA All-Star Game with the least following in history, with 5.9 million viewers.
Time for a change
Adam Silver recently mentioned that they are looking at and considering possible changes to the All-Star format, perhaps returning to something more traditional. The loss of audiences jeopardizes the current format, created as a tribute to the number Kobe wore in the Lakers. Some ideas that were launched to encourage increased competitiveness of the players are to give home field advantage to the team from the winning conference that manages to reach the final.
We certainly could have seen the final edition of this “target score” format last season. The most nostalgic fans dream of the possibility of seeing the East versus West duel again. Even the circumstance that occurred several decades ago in which the players played this game with the shirts of their franchises. It is increasingly clear that the NBA has to reinvent the All Star Game model if it does not want to see the interest of fans, and even of some players, decline every year. Last year Harden and Butler resigned to fill the position due to injuries to Durant, Zion and Curry.