Why the NBA All-Star Game is broken and how to fix it

At one time, the NBA hands-down had the best All-Star Game, but now it’s hard to argue it isn’t the worst.

For a while, it has been a tough watch, left me questioning why I was watching. This year, for the first time, I stopped watching.

The difference this time around is the intensity usually increases in the second half —and this year it did not.

This is the first time in All-Star Game history a team scored 200 points.

The NBA got to this point by not fighting the steady decline in the game’s competitiveness.

The NBA tried having captains pick teams, and even have a live draft.

The league tried the popular Elam ending and target score used to great success in the CEBL.

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It even tried having the players playing for money that would be donated to children’s charities. And the NBA went as far as to put the recipients in the stands behind the basket, so there was a visual reminder of who and what was being played for.

In the long run, none of it mattered.

Eventually, the league reverted back to the East vs. West format because it’s an even worse look when nobody cares to play hard for charity.

The most entertaining part of the actual game was not the play, it was Charles Barkley and Draymond Green making fun of each other.

The MVP trophy is now named after Kobe Bryant, but the actual game is a disgrace to his Mamba mentality.

We are far from when Kobe and Shaq didn’t want to acknowledge each other at half court before the All-Star Game.

In the 2012 All-Star Game in Orlando, Kobe Bryant had his nose broken by Dwyane Wade and not only stayed in the game but took the challenge of guarding LeBron James on the game’s final possession.

The players in the game take their cue from the best players. If the OG All-Stars aren’t going hard, a first-time All-Star in Scottie Barnes isn’t going to come out and pick up full court.

The NBA has a perception problem. People believe NBA players don’t want to play so much, so the NBA had to put in a role that regular-season award winners need to play 65 games to be eligible. At some point, load-management perception becomes reality and the league’s showcase becoming a glorified shoot-around isn’t helping.

It’s not just the aging stars who no longer have the energy to care. Anthony Edwards, in his second All-Star Game appearance, outwardly proclaimed he was going to shoot only with his left hand all weekend. The willful disdain to even pretend to care seems like a direct roll of the eye to NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who professed all week leading up to the game it was going to be more competitive.

Getting rid of the All-Star Game isn’t going to happen because it makes money. NBA All-Star weekend draws huge sponsorship revenue, provides programming and infuses money into host cities. It’s the NBA’s version of the Super Bowl. But it needs an intervention.

How did we get here?

The answer is layered. It’s a compilation of factors.

The All-Star Game used to be a way to promote the game and further establish stars. The players don’t need this game anymore to do that. Their social media accounts alone do that.

Players go on off-season tours now overseas to sell their shoes and their brand.

The game used to be a chance to see players you’d rarely see. Now, you can see the entire league on NBA League Pass. In Canada, on a nightly basis, you can watch at least one out-of-market game.

East vs. West doesn’t matter as players bounce back and forth between teams and conferences. It’s not novel to see your favourite stars play together because we’re just a trade demand away from another group of stars teaming up.

The fear of injury has been floated as a theory, but that’s irrational. Name a player who had a catastrophic injury in an NBA All-Star Game.

Increasing the amount of money at stake isn’t going to do it. The guys played hard in the in-season tournament because the games still matter and it’s cool to make extra money for the 15th man on the team. All the All-Stars are multi-millionaires. If you increased the amount the winning team made to $1 million, does that really excite Stephen Curry, who makes $51 million a year plus endorsements? Curry could show up at an All-Star city and attend brand and corporate events and make more than $1 million.

How do we fix it? First, let’s start with All-Star Saturday night.

First thing: get rid of the skills competition. Would anybody miss it? We’ve tried different versions. Single-player competition, team competition, WNBA players and alumni included. Anyone remember three-ball?

Zero in on the cultural aspects that make the NBA special and different online. If you searched NBA trending topics, they’re often tied to fashion and music. For an appetizer before the famous skills competitions, why not have an NBA player rap battle? Have a concert with local artists from the host city who are fans of the sport. With the rise of NBA player fashion and the fact that the All-Star Game is a backdrop for streetwear brands to have capsule collections, fully embrace it. Have an NBA player fashion show with America’s next top model style judges. Imagine if Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Russell Westbrook were competing to be the NBA’s fit king? It’s an exhibition for the sport, so showcase what makes the sport popular. Having NBA players jog halfheartedly and throw bounce passes at a stationary target is not anyone’s idea of entertainment. Might seem radical, but the celebrity game is already an accepted version of what I’ve just described.

All-Star Sunday and the game itself are much easier to fix.

One simple solution: start the game earlier. It is counterproductive to start it at 8:30 p.m. ET if the point of this game is for young kids to watch.

As for the game itself, the fix is easy: It needs to be NBA vs. the World. (I’d argue this could also save MLB’s All-Star Game.)

One thing Americans love is to proclaim they’re the best at something. One thing the rest of the world loves is to beat the Americans and show them they’re not. Background concerns have been voiced about there not being enough great international players. But the last five NBA MVPs were born outside the United States. With Joel Embiid, Shai-Gilgeous Alexander, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo all having strong years, that number likely will increase to six. This format has been used in the Nike Hoop Summit and the world has fared just fine.

Importantly, you’re immediately creating a home-and-road atmosphere.

You create and existential crisis that’ll be talked about, analyzed and scrutinized long before and after the game. The narrative of appraising the Americans’ stranglehold on the game will not only promote the game, it will promote players trying harder, as they don’t want to personally be seen as the ones to let their country down.

Plus, now the voting for All-Star Game roster spots become a much more global endeavour, as does the viewership for the game. You can even go as far as designing the American jerseys, with red, white and blue uniforms, and the world team with the colourway of the nation with the most All-Stars outside of the U.S. Again, driving incentive to vote and demand of consumption.

Kate Fagan explains it best when analyzing what makes sports entertaining. It’s not just the level of play that entices us — stakes and storylines are why we care about the sports we watch.

The NBA All-Star Game has no stakes, partially because in today’s day and age, it has become surplus for requirements. It doesn’t fill a void in our consumption habits. There is no conflict resolution.

When I was an adolescent, the All-Star Game was one of the must-see events in my sporting viewing calendar, as was the dunk contest.

The experience I had watching Vince Carter in the dunk contest was akin to Donovan Bailey competing at the Olympics.

Next year, the competition goes back to the San Francisco Bay area for the first time since Vince Carter’s legendary dunk competition performance.

The NBA All-Star weekend isn’t so far gone that it can’t be revived. Not long ago, the greatest dunk contest ever might have been in Toronto during the 2016 All-Star Game.

Aaron Gordon is known more for being robbed than most who have won it.

Times change fast. Forget about my childhood, even a few years ago, if you were to tell me on Valentine’s Day weekend professional women’s hockey game at Scotia Bank Arena in Toronto would have more juice in the building and more traction on social media than the NBA All-Star Game, I wouldn’t have believed you. Nor would I have believed that the three-point competition was bigger than the dunk competition. Or that a WNBA player shooting against the greatest shooter ever was more intriguing than anything else that happened All-Star weekend.

But it provided stakes and storylines not just casual and hardcore fans alike, but the players were bought in for.

The NBA needs to be careful; the players are signaling that the on-court aspect of the weekend no longer matters. If that attitude or circumstances that create it doesn’t change, the fans will believe them. This is one fan who already has.

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