Skip to content

NBA All-Star Game to Feature Pick-Up Style Format

The NBA Is Rolling the Dice With a New Pick-Up Format for the All-Star Game, and Fans Are Hyped

A New Era

In these divided times, one thing most people can agree on is that the NBA All-Star Game has become a joke. It’s a soft display of basketball with no competitive edge or real effort put in by the players, making it a far cry from real NBA games. Former president Barack Obama called it out recently, and even NBA commissioner Adam Silver sounded underwhelmed by last year’s lack of defense according to NBA rumors.

 

NBA All-Star Game to Feature Pick-Up Style Format
Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks | Stacy Revere/Getty Images/AFP


If you want to see real change to NBA All-Star weekend, you’re in luck. According to breaking NBA news, you can expect major changes to the 2025 NBA All-Star Game in February. With input from current players, team executives, governors, coaches, and union personnel, a new format that will resemble a pick-up style game has been approved.


Here is how the new NBA All-Star Game is expected to work:

  • No longer will it be a single game between two teams.
  • There are four teams with eight players per roster, including three NBA All-Star rosters and one roster consisting of NBA picks from the winner of the Rising Stars game.
  • There will be two semifinal games (Team 1 vs. Team 4, Team 2 vs. Team 3) where you have to reach 40 points to win.
  • The two winners of those semifinal games will meet in the finals where you have to reach 25 points to win.

 

Is it a little wonky? Yes. Will people still complain? Obviously. But at least the NBA continues to acknowledge things are not good with its All-Star Game, and this is the most dramatic step yet to try fixing it.

The Biggest Issue to Solve

There are some details they’ll still need to iron out on this new format, but the most glaring issue is the inclusion of the Rising Stars roster. That means you’ll have rookies trying to guard the best players in the league so that one semifinal game involving them could be a lopsided affair.

In that regard, how does one figure out the strength of each roster if we’re to assume a type of seeding system where the Rising Stars will be the weakest link and face the strongest All-Star roster, leaving the other semifinal game a more balanced contest?


In a way, this could mean the 8-player rosters could resemble how people would rank the players for All-NBA teams this season from the first team to the third team. That part could actually boost fan interest as there’s nothing NBA fans love more than arguing online about which player is better.

This could be a better format than the traditional format of sorting the teams by conference, or the recent attempt to have captains choose their roster where funny things happen like MVP Nikola Jokic being the last pick made.


But at the end of the day, the players are still going to have to put in a little more effort defensively to turn the games into more than 3-point shooting contests, a criticism that’s already been made at real NBA games in the regular season and postseason these days.

It’s possible to make this work. The NFL still has the biggest flaws in making an All-Star Game good because of health reasons. Basketball just needs a little effort to flow.

 

Did you find this article interesting?

Comments (0)

Featured Picks

Related News