Why the NBA should eliminate the All-Star Game and restructure the showcase weekend

The 2024 NBA All-Star Game is in the books and it was a relatively snoozefest as expected. Damian Lillard won the All-Star Game MVP award behind 39 points on 11-23 shooting from three-point range, including some impressive shots from the logo and half court. The Eastern Conference won 211-186, setting a record for the most points scored by a team in the All-Star Game.

The novelty of the All-Star Game has begun to wear down fans, and it’s possible even the players have stopped taking this event somewhat seriously. Here’s a look at why the NBA should eliminate the All-Star Game and restructure the entire weekend to make the best use of the break and entertain its audience.

All-Star Game ratings are down

The league’s showcase has seen a steady decline in ratings, largely because the way fans consume the NBA has changed since the early 2000s. The All-Star Game hit 10.8 million viewers in 2003 according to Statista, and hasn’t come close to that mark since. The 2020 contest had a random spike at 7.3 million viewers, but it was the lone contest in a four-year block that had more than 7 million. The 2023 game, which featured a live draft that turned into a rambling of each player’s accomplishments during the season, had 4.6 million viewers. The NBA had something going with the team draft but then tanked that by attempting to create more fire without actually doing so.

The game itself has turned into an open scrimmage barely resembling basketball. It’s not watchable, and no amount of drama with a team draft is going to change that. The players are trying to avoid being injured in a meaningless game, especially since the stretch run of the season is right after the break.

Saturday’s contests haven’t fared much better

And while we’re getting rid of the game, we can look into eliminating Saturday’s events as well. The Dunk Contest in particular can be sent packing, especially after a questionable 2024 edition which featured Celtics All-Star Jaylen Brown getting into the final despite performing dunks with little degree of difficulty. The judges seemed to be handing out top scores without much thought. Brown’s dunk over YouTuber Kai Cenat (who was sitting down) actually made the crowd boo.

At this point, there’s not much a player can do that hasn’t been done before. Rather than allowing people to make a mockery of the event, let’s just eliminate it. The Skills Challenge and 3-point Contest need to be modified too.

The team with No. 1 picks in the Skills Challenge got disqualified in the team relay after failing to follow rules, probably because those players couldn’t be bothered about simply weaving around the obstacles on the court instead of going through them as they pleased. The hometown Pacers seemed to care, which makes sense but the other two teams don’t have any incentive. The Skills Challenge should be done by individual players like it was at previous All-Star weekends. The prize money should be significant enough to push players to participate, and the drills need to be adjusted.

The 3-point Contest needs to change shot locations and randomize where the money ball rack is. The “Starry” balls need to be placed farther out and worth more points. Instead of having eight participants where three make the final after one round, have two players team up and make the competition a bracket. An eight-person round-robin is just exhausting.

According to Yahoo!, the 2023 Saturday events got 3.42 million viewers. That’s down from 2022, which saw 4.24 million viewers. While the 2024 numbers are fantastic with the NBA claiming 10 million viewers across TNT, TBS and Bleacher Report, a sizable portion of that is likely due to the special contest between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu (which could be expanded to feature more WNBA players) but the rest of the events were still mundane.

The purpose of All-Star Weekend

The way I see it, there are three purposes to All-Star Weekend. The first is to highlight one of the NBA’s markets and give the local economy a nice boost. However, the city of Indianapolis existed before this weekend and was highly likely to exist after this weekend regardless of whether the league took over the city. The economic boost of the NBA isn’t negligible but it’s not going to move the needle for a city’s survival. And when we eventually do get to solutions, there will still be a decent presence for the host city to see some financial returns.

The second purpose is to allow media members access to players, coaches and the NBA commissioner in a less formal setting. These interactions are more tense and game-related during the regular season, which can prevent people from getting to know each other and forging relationships. All-Star weekend creates a more friendly environment where information can be traded without the heat of the regular season. The trade deadline has also passed, which means the league’s biggest rumor mill has also come to a halt. The commissioner gets to deliver a “State of the NBA” address and discuss concerns in front of a large media contingent, which he or she won’t do again the rest of the year. The commissioner is unlikely to do more interviews until the draft lottery and the Finals.

The last purpose, which is actually the primary one, is to give the players some rest. The All-Star break is conventionally considered the halfway point of the season but it’s closer to the two-thirds mark. Even though the players who would most benefit from the rest are likely going to participate in the festivities, they do get several days off after the weekend. The league wants its best players to be healthy for the final push and this break is important for them, even if they do have scheduled rest during the season.

How to fix All-Star weekend

The problem with the All-Star Game is how it’s presented. Fans can see their favorite players at any point in time thanks to League Pass and streaming services that go beyond local broadcasts. The league has increasingly transitioned to becoming a social media phenomenon, looking at interactions on Twitter or views on YouTube as metrics for growth. The traditional TV audience doesn’t exist anymore, so why are the All-Star events being limited to that medium?

The draft needs to return but not for an All-Star Game. Twenty-four players are selected as All-Stars, voted by a combination of fans, coaches and media members. That’s likely what the pool will stay at, and commissioner Adam Silver said as much in his media availability. Instead of having two captains pick teams in a television special a few weeks before All-Star weekend, make the top four players in the fan vote captains. Those four players will conduct a live draft (without the theatrics) to actually pick a six-person squad for a series of mini-games. The All-Stars can be introduced in style, but the draft process needs to be just like recess. Line ‘em up and pick them one by one.

Presenting: The All-Star Games

There will be three mini-games: Around the World, Knockout and King of the Hill. For Around the World, each team will take 18 shots placed around the court. One set will be a around the lane, another will be a midrange set and the last one will be a three-point set. Each player must take one shot from each location area, which means each player on the team takes three shots. It’s a timed event, with the top team receiving 10 points. Second place gets seven points, third place gets four points and last place gets one point.

Knockout is straightforward enough, although it’ll require a round-robin format. Two teams will face each other, with the winning team getting two points. Every team will face each other, and the top two teams from the round-robin will advance to a final round. The bottom two teams will play for third place. The winning team gets 10 points, and the allocation remains the same for the subsequent teams.

King of the Hill will require four hoops in addition to the two on the court, which is actually how most gyms are built anyway. Lower the four extra hoops and designate spots for players to shoot from at each location. Two teams face off in the first round, with six players going head-to-head from assigned spots at each hoop. The player who makes the most baskets wins that point. Each round is worth six points. Similar to knockout, every team plays each other and the final scores are tallied up. The winning team gets 10 points, and the allocation remains the same for subsequent teams.

The Final

In the event two teams are tied after the three games, we can have a timed half-court shot between the squads in question. The top two teams after the mini-games will play 3v3 basketball in a best-of-3 series. Since each team will have six players, squads must rotate every seven combined points. Each game goes to 21 by ones and twos. It’s more fun than seeing guys fly through the lane unobstructed, requires less running overall and creates more of an opportunity for guys to take each other on.

Structuring the weekend

In order to actually serve the interests of the players, the league should extend the actual break by a few days. The NBA had three games Thursday before the break this year, and one was a makeup game for the Warriors due to the sudden passing of their assistant coach. Barring unforeseen circumstances, all games should end Wednesday and the All-Star break should be extended to Thursday.

The Celebrity Game and Rising Stars showcase can still take place Friday. Both events don’t hold much sway over the league anyway in terms of actually drawing viewers but serve as a nice start to the break.

The Skills Challenge and 3-point Contest should be held Saturday, but earlier in the day. This will allow anyone participating in those events to be ready for the All-Star Games, which will take place Saturday night. Sunday is a day off, and the league keeps the three days off afterward to resume regular season play Thursday.

Incentives

Money is obviously the easiest incentive to get people to care. The NBA already handed out big checks for the In-Season Tournament, so they can certainly pony up for these games. The overall winning team of the All-Star Games gets $500k per player, with second place getting $250k. Third place gets $100k each and last place gets $50k each. In addition to these payouts, each of the first three mini-games is worth $25k per player for the winning team. That’s a total pool of $5.85 million, less than what the winning team got paid out for the In-Season Tournament.

But why stop at money?

What if each player was paired up with an opponent in some sort of future stake? For example, Luka Doncic and LeBron James get paired with each other. Imagine if the winning player got to take over the losing player’s Instagram or Twitter for a day. Imagine if the winning player got to pick the loser’s pregame outfit for their next head-to-head game, or next game if they have no meetings left. Imagine if the winning player got to force the losing player to do a dare, like dine in at a McDonald’s or take public transportation to the game. Stars like Doncic and James might not care about money, but they surely don’t want to be subjected to random social media posts or lousy pregame fits. And I highly doubt James wants to figure out the LA public transit system to get to Crypto.com Arena if he loses. You’d need to have the players sign waivers and there has to be some sort of honor system but that’s plenty of incentive to try in these games.

The end result

Under this proposal, the league still gets to show off a market. The media still gets to check in with all the relevant points of contact. The commissioner still gets to deliver his talking points. The players get some additional rest. And the main restructured events get put into one day as a bigger showcase, rather than getting spread out over the full weekend.

As far as broadcasting goes, the league should look into second streams and alternate platforms. The broadcast audience isn’t the primary consumer anymore, so the NBA needs to adapt. Even if the TV channel has the main broadcast, alternate broadcasts on Twitter, nba.com and YouTube could generate big numbers.

This format drums up interest in the weekend without sacrificing the primary reasons for having it in the first place. The NBA needs to go beyond a move back to the traditional East vs. West format to fix this tentpole event. It needs to scrap the All-Star Game entirely and highlight its players in a different way.