SAN FRANCISCO – Milwaukee Bucks All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo spoke the truest of words before Sunday’s All-Star Game.
“You cannot force anybody to play hard if he doesn’t want to,” Antetokounmpo said.
In a meaningless exhibition game played with just two months left in the regular season and the playoffs lurking for several All-Stars, it’s almost impossible to get a competitive game.
That hasn’t stopped the NBA from changing the format to try.
As gracious All-Star host and game MVP Steph Curry said Sunday in the aftermath of another format change in which All-Stars played a mini three-game tournament: “It was a good step in the right direction to reinvigorate the game in some way, and then you tinker with it again next year and see what changes you can make.
“I don’t want to compare it to any other era because the world has changed. Life is different. The way people consume basketball is different. It’s not going to look like it used to. But it can still be fun for everybody.”
More true words.
All-Star games across all sports aren’t what they used to be, and that’s OK. Sunday’s game wasn’t awful – and that’s not the endorsement the league wants – with some entertaining moments, and the absence of an eyesore score in the upper 100s/lower 200s. The various stoppages that delayed play sapped energy from the night and I’m not sure the finished product was what the NBA sought.
And the hopeful skeptic in me wonders if the NBA All-Star Game can be what the league wants. (And I’m opposed to adding more prize money to the pool for players as motivation. The optics of that are unpleasant.)
It’s not time to scrap the All-Star Game yet.
Though replacing the game with other non-Saturday events should be something the NBA is discussing internally. One-on-one and three-on-three games. Different shooting contests. It can still be a celebration for the league, players and fans. The NBA can’t keep having a never-ending conversation about this game.
And I’m not sure NBC, which gets the All-Star Game next season as part of the league’s new 11-year, $76 billion deal, is ready for that either. Though next season will be a challenge with NBC also showing the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics.
There were portions of Sunday’s mini-tournament that worked. There was a modicum of defense, fewer uncontested dunks, a little less 3-point chucking – save for Curry who gets a free pass with his range and on his homecourt.
Getting rid of the Rising Stars participation should be high on the league’s to-do list. As Curry continued to speak truths, he said, “The All-Star experience on Sunday is very sacred, and you have to work your way into that.”
There is a lot of talk about an All-Star Game featuring international players vs. U.S. players. Antetokounmpo supported that, saying, “Oh, I would love that. I think that would be the most interesting and most exciting format. … For sure, I’d take pride in that. I always compete, but I think that will give me a little bit more extra juice to compete.”
However, among this season’s 24 All-Stars, there were only seven with international connections. It’s a numbers game. Yes, a record-tying 125 international players were on opening night rosters, proving how global the game is now. But there were still more than 325 U.S. players on opening night rosters.
It sounds fun, but the international squad would have to add players who otherwise might not make an All-Star team, and Curry’s comment about the event being sacred doesn’t lend itself to that idea.
Free suggestion for next season: Keep the eight-player-per-team format by divvying up the 24 All-Stars into three teams, eliminate the Rising Stars squad and the first team to win two games to 40 points is the All-Star champion. The first two teams play, and winner stays to play the third team – just like a pickup game. If the winner of the first game lost the second game then the winner of the second game would play the loser of the first game. There would be no more than four games.
Or each team plays each other in a round robin with one game consisting of a 15-minute quarter – and the team with the highest score is the champ. You can come up with various tiebreakers if two or more teams had the same points total after two games.
And keep the night moving.
Follow NBA columnist Jeff Zillgitt on social media @JeffZillgitt
