After much consternation over the NBA All-Star Game in recent years, the league is shaking things up with a new format this year: USA vs. World.
So how does it work? Three teams — two made up of players from the United States (USA Stars and USA Stripes) and a third consisting of international competitors (Team World) will play in a round-robin tournament, with each team playing each other once. The two teams with the best records will advance to the championship game. Each game will be 12 minutes.
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The teams are as follows:
Team USA Stars: Scottie Barnes, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Anthony Edwards, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Johnson, Tyrese Maxey
Team USA Stripes: Jaylen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant, De’Aaron Fox, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, Stephen Curry (injured, replaced by Brandon Ingram)
Team World: Deni Avdija, Luka Dončić, Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, Norman Powell, Pascal Siakam, Karl-Anthony Towns, Victor Wembanyama, Giannis Antetokounmpo (injured, replaced by D’Aaron Fox), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (injured, replaced by Alperen Sengun)
Start time: 5 p.m. ET
Location: Intuit Dome | Inglewood, Calif.
TV channel, live stream: NBC, Peacock
Follow along with Yahoo Sports for the latest updates from the NBA All-Star Game:
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Ben Rohrbach
The All-Star Game was once held between teams from the Eastern and Western conferences, facing each other in what looked a lot like an NBA game — four 12-minute quarters and intense competition among the greatest basketball players in the world.
Somewhere along the way, most likely as parties and corporate sponsorships took greater priority throughout the weekend, the players stopped caring as much about competition.
As players took the game less seriously, scores for the first time soared into the 190s in 2016 and 2017, and in 2018 the NBA changed its All-Star Game format for the first time.
The resurrection of the All-Star Game was short-lived, however, and in 2024 Silver reverted to the East vs. West format. It did not go well, as the East beat the West 211-186.
The 2025 NBA All-Star game did not go well. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun /Anadolu via Getty Images)
(Anadolu via Getty Images)
So, Silver instituted a just-as-confusing round-robin tournament last year, featuring three teams of All-Stars and a fourth of Rising Stars, and that, obviously, did not go well, either (Shaq’s OG’s beat Chuck’s Global Stars 41-25).
Rather than scrap the game entirely, ending what was once one of its signature events, Silver made another effort to inspire the same from the players in this confounding USA vs. World round-robin format.
The only thing that will truly change the level of competition is care from the players, who are more incentivized to remain healthy for the teams that pay them millions. If — and that’s a big if — the new format inspires increased competition from players who want to represent their countries, much like the Olympics elicits effort, bring it on.
