Why the NBA chose to pass up the Battle of the Sexes Part 2

We have come a long way since the epic dunk contests and action packed All-Star Games that old heads like me grew up watching in the 1980s and 90s.

NBA misses opportunity

Back then we used to set up the whole weekend around watching Jordan lace up his famous sneaks and take off from the free throw line, or Magic and Larry go head to head, or the East and the West teams battle it out in a defensive, intense game played in the 90s.

Those days are gone it seems and as much as the league tries to tweak the formula, nothing seems to stick. The dunk contest hasn’t been interesting since Zach Levine and Aaron Gordon went head-to-head almost a decade ago. The All-Star game featured almost 400 points last year, and no one really cares about it any more.

This year they are trying something different with the NBA’s All-Star Game, breaking up the rosters into four teams and having a knockout style tournament. That may or may not work, but last year the NBA did something that did work, and unfortunately it’s not coming back.

The reason why there won’t be a rematch

Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu went toe-to-toe in a three point shootout as each star represented their own leagues and the NBA star edged out the WNBA star 29-26 in a nail biter from Indianapolis.

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A rematch seemed to make all the sense in the world considering the All-Star game in being held in San Franciso, where Curry plays, and where Ionescu grew. Despite the stars aligning, the NBA is passing on a potential rematch, stating the league is going to focus on the main event on Sunday.

“We weren’t able to land on a plan we thought would raise the bar off of last year’s special moment,” NBA chief communications officer Mike Bass said. “We all agreed not to proceed and will instead keep the focus on All-Star Sunday’s new format.”