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Luka Doncic #77 of the Los Angeles Lakers and Kevin Durant #7 of the Houston Rockets talk with referee Jason Goldenberg #35 during the second quarter at Crypto.com Arena on December 25, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Slovenian guard Luka Doncic has responded to Kevin Durant’s claims that the All-Star Game became less competitive when the Los Angeles Lakers star, Nikola Jokica and other European superstars became regular fixtures in the NBA’s annual February tradition, citing their lack of resistance on defense.
Doncic, a perennial All-Star since his second season in 2020, insists the All-Star Game stopped being competitive long before he and Jokic entered the league.
“It was the same when I played in my first All-Star game, so I don’t know why KD mentioned me and Jokic,” Doncic said on Saturday, via Sportinfo’s Matej.
“But I think we’ll see a more competitive game this year with the World vs USA format.”
Kevin Durant Blames Europeans
Earlier in the week, Durant, albeit in a joking tone, blamed European stars for bringing a lackadaisical approach to the All-Star Game, including attempting half-court shots and not playing a lick of defense.
“You should ask the Europeans and the World team if they’re going to compete,” Durant said when asked about the lack of competitiveness in the All-Star Game, via ESPN’s Michael C. Wright.
“If you look at Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic now, let’s go back and look at what they do in the All-Star Game. Is that competition? So we haven’t questioned what they’ve been doing. But we’re going to question the old heads, and the Americans.
“But these two dudes out there, Luka and Jokic, they don’t care about the game at all. These dudes be laying on the floor. They’re shooting from half court. But you’ve got to worry about the old heads playing hard? I can read between the lines, bro. It’s just an overall topic that everybody’s been talking about.”
NBA All-Star Game 2026
The lack of competitiveness at the All-Star Game has forced the NBA to tinker with the format of the exhibition contest with a series of hits and misses. In the last five years, the league has twice abandoned and reinstated the East versus West format, held an All-Star Draft in which captains draft rosters, introduced a “target score” system (Elam ending) and most recently, a three-team tournament featuring 8-man rosters.
The likes of Draymond Green and Kawhi Leonard have criticized the league for overly tinkering with the format of the All-Star Game.
“We’re doing all these different gimmicks. I think that makes it actually more of a joke in trying to do the gimmicks than just saying it’s East-West,” Green said on “The Draymond Green Show” podcast, via Warriors Wire.
“How do you get these guys to compete East versus West? Until you can do that, I don’t think the gimmicks work. It may work for a year. It looks good in a year. And then you’re like, ‘Ah, I don’t want to see that again because it wasn’t a real game.’ It wasn’t the games that I grew up watching, that you grew up watching, that you’ve covered your whole life.”
Meanwhile, Leonard has urged the NBA to revert to a traditional East vs. West format.
“With the teams split up you don’t really know who you’re playing with or what the score is,” he said, via Joey Linn. “I rather it just be East and West and just go and compete and see what the outcome is. I don’t think a format can make you compete.”
Sai Mohan covers the NBA for Heavy.com. Based in Portugal, Sai is a seasoned sports writer with nearly two decades of publishing experience, including bylines at Yardbarker, FanSided’s Hoops Habit, International Business Times, Hindustan Times and more. More about Sai Mohan
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