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We are at the All-Star break. The Pistons have the best record in the league. The Spurs are the hottest team in basketball with six straight wins. The Kings are the coldest team with 14 straight losses. And Jay Huff has as many blocked shots as Victor Wembanyama. All things we expected.
Please Clap
Time to see the latest ASG format
All-Star Weekend is supposed to be a big celebration for the NBA and the game of basketball. But in the age of social media, we’re seeing a lot more criticism and cynicism thrown toward the All-Star Game itself. A big part of that is justified, though. The game has lost its competitive edge, and we’re often just hoping it’s close by accident.
Last year at this time, the NBA used four teams (eight All-Stars on three squads and the winning Rising Stars team) in a tournament format. Some NBA legends and players found it offensive that the Rising Stars would be allowed to compete with the All-Stars. Well, when you don’t put a good product on the floor, sometimes a company has to go to extremes to find a spark. Still, it didn’t happen.
With All-Star Weekend moving to NBC this year, the league again hoped to find a format that brings the competitive fire. Enter the NBA’s bet on national pride that we spoke about yesterday.
How does it work? Three teams of eight players compete in a round-robin tournament on Sunday (5 p.m ET). We have eight All-Stars from the younger set of U.S.-born All-Stars. Then we have eight older Americans. The other eight are all international players. These three teams will compete in four 12-minute games.
- Game 1: USA Stars (younger) vs. World
- Game 2: Winner of Game 1 vs. USA Stripes (older)
- Game 3: Loser of Game 1 vs. USA Stripes
- Game 4: Top two teams from those three games in an All-Star championship. (If all three teams were 1-1, it would go to point differential.)
What are the teams? Here’s what we’ll see:
- USA Stars: Scottie Barnes, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Anthony Edwards, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Johnson, Tyrese Maxey
- USA Stripes: Jaylen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant, Brandon Ingram, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, De’Aaron Fox
- World Team: Deni Avdija, Luka Dončić, Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, Alperen Sengun, Pascal Siakam, Karl-Anthony Towns, Victor Wembanyama, Norman Powell
Fox was added as an All-Star replacement for Giannis Antetokounmpo. That moved Norman Powell from USA Stripes to the World because he has played for the Jamaican national team. Giannis and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander were named All-Star starters, but injuries are keeping them out.
So how can this become a success? Wembanyama has made comments about setting the tone with his competitiveness, diving for loose balls and putting out a total effort. He hopes that galvanizes other players to play hard. I’m not sure that’s going to work. Giannis has played hard in a lot of these, and opponents kind of just get out of his way. But if enough players start approaching it like Wemby, maybe there’s a change?
The NBA is banking on international versus national pride. But literally every player on the active World roster is representing a different country. That means the NBA can only hope this taps into the other two teams’ reserves of American (and generational) pride. Also, you’re only asking them to play hard for 12-minute stretches.
Oh, and please don’t put big musical breaks in between the games. That killed any flow last year. You don’t have a mini-concert during quarter breaks in actual games. Game ops needs to keep the basketball happening. Get some water, and then see who’s got next.
I hope it works. I love the All-Star Game, but I’m not sure how many other ideas the league might have. A couple years ago, we had some ideas, though.
The last 24
🔎 Inside look. Joe Vardon and Mike Vorkunov explore the law firm that investigates the NBA’s biggest scandals.
🏀 NBA debut. Nikola Topic missed last season with a knee injury, and he had testicular cancer to start this season. He made his debut last night.
🗽 New Knick. Jeremy Sochan was shockingly released by the Spurs. He’s signing with New York.
🔨 Problem fixed. The Cavs had a raised court for no reason. They’re fixing it after the Luka injury.
🏀 Uh-oh. Caleb Wilson is one of the top draft prospects. He’s out indefinitely with a hand injury.
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
Saturday Night Live
All-Star Saturday could depend on 3s
Sunday is the main event in Los Angeles, but in many ways, the Saturday events can let us know if the weekend is going to be viewed as a success. Give us a great night of 3-point shooting and dunking? You can carry that energy through the entire weekend.
What are the high hopes for Saturday night? Let’s preview the three events!
Shooting Stars Competition
The Skills Challenge is gone! Maybe that’s because it became a carnival game? Maybe it was Chris Paul coercing Wemby to try to game the system? Regardless, we’re going back to the three-person Shooting Stars event. This time, we don’t have a WNBA player involved, but we do have two current players and an NBA legend.
- Team All-Star: Scottie Barnes, Chet Holmgren, Richard Hamilton
- Team Cameron (Duke alumni): Jalen Johnson, Kon Knueppel, Corey Maggette
- Team Harper: Dylan Harper, Ron Harper Jr., Ron Harper Sr.
- Team Knicks: Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Allan Houston
I wonder if we’ll get another Barnes half-court display. I always liked this event, and it should be a fun, timed shooting display. I’ll predict the Knicks team wins. It’s also funny for Johnson to be on Team Cameron, considering Johnson and Duke don’t seem to like each other?
3-point Shootout
Many say this has become the event of Saturday night. I still hold out hope for the dunk contest, no matter the contestants. But the 3-point contest has a fun field.
- Contestants: Devin Booker (31.1% this season), Kon Knueppel (43.1%), Damian Lillard (37.1% career), Tyrese Maxey (37.9%), Donovan Mitchell (37.6%), Jamal Murray (42.5%), Bobby Portis (45.0%), Norman Powell (39.6%)
Booker is the only confusing pick, based on how he’s shooting the 3-ball this season. He’s more toward 35 percent for his career, but this season does not justify him being on it. We know he can shoot, though. Lillard is participating despite being out for the year with the Achilles tear from last postseason. Knueppel has a real shot at this as a rookie. But I’m going with the most fun option. Give me Lillard.
Dunk contest
I love the dunk contest. I champion the dunk contest. I don’t believe it should be abolished in the slightest. In fact, it should be encouraged and accepted. With that said, this might truly be the weakest field we’ve ever had.
- Contestants: Jaxson Hayes (Lakers), Carter Bryant (Spurs), Jase Richardson (Magic), Keshad Johnson (Heat)
I guess Hayes is the JaVale McGee-esque option? Or so they hope. Richardson would be more exciting if it were his dad, Jason, or his younger brother, Jaxon. Johnson is a San Diego State legend, so he’s near and dear to my heart, but I don’t have high hopes. Bryant is probably the best dunker here, but we have no idea if he has the creativity. I guess we should just be happy this isn’t another Mac McClung forced entry. Fingers crossed. I’ll roll with Keshad, the Aztecs legend.
Weekend action begins tonight at 7 p.m. ET. with the Celebrity Game, where one team will be co-coached by Bounce survey mainstay Thanasis Antetokounmpo.
Tank Watch
Jazz and Pacers fined for tanking
The league announced yesterday that Utah and Indiana were both being fined for the management of their rosters in recent games. The Pacers were being fined $100,000 for sitting Pascal Siakam and two other starters against the Jazz on Feb. 3, and the Jazz were being fined $500,000 for sitting Jaren Jackson Jr. and Lauri Markkanen in the fourth quarters in recent games in Orlando and in Miami.
Many of us have been monitoring the Jazz’s recent tanking ways and wondering if the league would respond to their innovative tanking tactics. Well, this is a pretty clear message. Predictably, the backwards-hat-wearing billionaire and owner of the Jazz, Ryan Smith, quoted-tweeted the news release from the league with this:
“ 🙄 agree to disagree … Also, we won the game in Miami and got fined? That makes sense …”
Sure. The Jazz saw their coach not call timeouts at the end of one of those tight games, and they accidentally won against Miami. Bam Adebayo even said the Heat have to find a way to win against teams trying to lose.
I’ll also remind Smith that, during the last 22 games of last season, his franchise fielded one of the least competitive products we’ve ever seen, in an effort to find their way to Cooper Flagg. They won two of those games against Washington and Portland. Would he argue that his organization was trying to win games then? Maybe you think we’re stupid, but nobody is buying that crap.
Honestly, I just feel bad for Jusuf Nurkic. He was also kept out of the fourth quarters against the Magic and Heat, but the league did not mention him in their press release. Nurk matters too!