Spencer Wagen / 1600ESPN
Another NBA All-Star Weekend has come and gone and, despite a new format for Sunday’s showcase event for the top stars in the league, it’s obvious that fans of the game are once again left wanting more. They still have the same questions about the relevance of what was once must-see entertainment.
In case you haven’t been following, the NBA moved away from the traditional East vs. West setup to a four-team tournament, with the winners of two semifinal games battling to be the All-Star Game “champion.” After a 211-186 final score in last year’s game, with highlight reel dunks and logo threes left and right, a change was necessary and, all things considered, moving to a tournament format isn’t the worst idea in the world to try and drum up interest from both players and fans alike.
The main problem with Sunday night’s All-Star broadcast? There wasn’t enough basketball! Out of a three-hour window of television, we got maybe 40 minutes total of actual game play. With each game being played to a target score of 40 points, the games were never going to be lengthy — but when you devote a three-hour window (in TV terms) to the event, people tuning in for actual “game” content were no doubt disappointed.
Therein lies a big mistake I think the NBA made in making this format change: They left too much room for other stuff that isn’t basketball-related within the event itself. Sure, the All-Star Game always has hyped up player introductions and a halftime show, and the league needs to keep its sponsors happy with commercial breaks and such, but it’s called an All-Star Game for a reason. If there’s more non-game stuff than actual basketball being played, what are we doing here?
The complaints about how choppy the event was weren’t limited to fans. Some players also said there could have been a better flow to things on Sunday night. “To be honest, I didn’t like it at all,” Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young said via ESPN.com. “I didn’t like the breaks. The games were so short. Obviously, we can score. So, they’re trying to, I feel like, trying to extend the game, extend the TV time with the breaks and things like that.”
It’s important to point out that reviews of the new all-star format weren’t all negative. In fact, many players were quite positive about the changes. “I think 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,” said game MVP Steph Curry at the post-game news conference. Most other players surveyed after the game said they had fun with the new format and that the competitiveness felt a little bit better compared to past All-Star Games.
So what do you do with an event that by all accounts drew, at best, mixed reviews, with plenty of negativity in the air still surrounding the product?
Honestly, I think it’s best for the NBA to pick a format and stay with it for a while. It would be easy for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to hear the calls for change and mix things up again to appease people who may never be happy with the end result, but at what point do you lose credibility when you can’t stay with one format? If the league decided this new tournament-style format was best then, at the very least, I think it should be given time to develop — all while making changes to improve the flow of the Sunday night game(s) and even the weekend as a whole.
Don’t get it twisted — I think the current all-star product is largely unwatchable, and the league has plenty of other things to worry about than the All-Star Game continuing to fall into irrelevancy. Until the league finds its golden goose, which to many fans and even some players is changing to a U.S. versus the world format for the game, we will continue to have this conversation over and over again. For now, I think the focus needs to be returned to the basketball part of All-Star Weekend.
Spencer Wagen is the host of “Spencer on Sports,” weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on 1600ESPN. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @SWOnTheRadio.
