The latest “how do we fix the NBA All-Star game” narratives are all forgetting the one key point about All-Star games: they are terrible and always have been. No matter the sport, the actual All-Star main event is the worst part of the experience by far. The complaints that “players used to play hard” are not ultimately about the All-Star game itself, but that in the old days players used to play at one speed every game, and that was full throttle. There are plenty of stories about players suffering season-ending injuries in exhibition games they played for extra cash in mid-season. The combination of higher salaries and emphasis on winning a championship (as opposed to the pennant or the division, which for many years was the ultimate goal) has caused players to look at themselves, rightfully, as the product. They don’t go 100% when it doesn’t count. Period, the end…
All-Star games are also now very irrelevant because we as sports fans can watch the top player in any league at any time on demand via the device we carry in our pocket that has all the world’s information available to us, yet we use it to watch cat videos and argue with strangers. But I digress (slightly). If you lived in a National League city in the 70’s, you got to see Reggie Jackson on teevee a handful of times a year, maybe, if you were lucky. Heck, it was hard for San Francisco audiences to see Willie Mays on teevee during his heyday at all, because baseball has always ignored emerging media. And now there’s literally an account called MLBHRVideos that does nothing but find and post home runs as soon as they happen…
Look, any All-Star weekend in itself still has merit. No matter the sport, it’s the only place the players all get to hang out with each other in mid-season in a casual spot. Lebron and Steph may go have dinner together after the Lakers play the Warriors, but Giannis won’t be there, nor Luka or Jokic or Jimmy Butler or Kawhi. This allows them to do that. So for that alone, the players like All-Star weekend. The game itself is an anti-climax for the players as well as the fans…
So what’s the solution? The “split the conferences into two teams each, have them play each other and then the winners play like the Rising Stars Challenge or NHL All-Star Game” variation still requires them to play a game they have no interest playing…
Honestly, the only thing that will get them to try really hard is cold hard cash rewards. What made the new NBA in-season tournament as least somewhat watchable once we got to the semifinals and finals was that there was 500 grand attached to it for the winners. Lebron and the Lakers haven’t tried as hard in a consecutive three-game stretch before or since this season. But they did for an extra 500 G’s and a trophy. So as much as they don’t want to admit it, that’s the solution. Any player in any sport will do hula hoop competitions on teevee if there’s several hundred Franklins per person riding on the outcome…
The most fun event of the entire weekend was the Stephen vs. Sabrina 3-point challenge, and maybe here is the key to the All-Star weekend: one All-Star challenging another to a skills competition. That way you are not competing against some rando, but a friend or teammate or a potential rival you don’t know very well. So now both players are connected to the event and the outcome matters not just for that moment but for the rest of the year. You know Steph is going to bring it up every time he sees Sabrina, and she’s going to motivated to try and win the next time. THAT’S how you fix the All-Star game…
The other most interesting thing that happened was Paul McCartney getting his original Hofner violin bass back after more than 50 years. There was even a collaborative website set up between Paul and Hofner to try and get it back. Turns out that while Paul thought it was stolen around the time of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, it was actually stolen out of a Wings equipment van when they were going around playing small clubs in 1972. I can only assume that the person who stole it passed away and the agreement amongst the family was they would return it to Paul after their passing…
See, there are fixes and solutions. Sometimes they take a while to figure out…
Yes, it was nice that Paul got his bass back. I watched Sabrina and Stef and that was fun. I haven't watched an all-star game since they had two per season in baseball. They were boring then, too.
"The latest “how do we fix the NBA All-Star game” narratives are all forgetting the one key point about All-Star games: they are terrible and always have been. No matter the sport, the actual All-Star main event is the worst part of the experience by far."
Nuff said...brilliant!