Another year, another NBA All-Star bust. After this year’s reinvention of the event — a three-game mini-tournament — flopped, the league’s players and fans are calling for more changes. One idea seems to be rising to the top: Team USA vs. everybody.
The 2025 All-Star event on Sunday drew the shrugs and yawns that in recent years have accompanied the once-storied exhibition.
But fans found new ways to criticize this year’s festivities: there wasn’t enough basketball.
Despite featuring three untimed, first-to-40 games, viewers of the television broadcast felt that the event moved at a glacial pace. The clock backed up their gut instincts.
According to a team of internet sleuths on social media, Sunday’s three-hour broadcast featured just 42 minutes of actual basketball. The rest of the airtime was filled with advertisements, analysis and criticism from the broadcasters, a tribute to “Inside the NBA” and a musical performance by a collection of Bay Area rappers.
Fans at home felt the awkward pacing. So did the players at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
“To be honest, I didn’t like it at all,” Atlanta Hawks All-Star Trae Young told reporters. “I didn’t like the breaks. The games were so short. Obviously, we can score. So, they’re trying to, I feel like, extend the game, extend the TV time with the breaks and things like that.”
“I would rather play without breaks. …” Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I guess it’s up to the guys that handle all that stuff to figure out what’s next and how to keep making it more and more interesting. Hopefully, we get there one day.”
Ideas for the future flowed rapidly on Sunday night. Some fans called for a return to the old East vs. West format, which the league has used just once since 2017. Others appreciated the current format but urged the NBA to let games play without interruption.
But one idea, potentially inspired by last summer’s Paris Olympics and the NHL’s ongoing 4 Nations Face-Off, has risen to the front of the pack: a Team USA vs. Team World game.
The concept is simple: pitting the league’s best Americans against the ever-growing pool of international superstars. The global spread of the sport has made the idea, which would once be a blowout in favor of the Americans, a real possibility.
Aging stars like LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant might anchor the U.S. squad, but each of the last six MVPs could suit up for the opposition. The details would need work — there were more American All-Stars than foreign ones this year — but the players are optimistic.
“I think that would be the most interesting and most exciting format. I would love that. For sure, I’d take pride in that,” Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo said. “I always compete, but I think that will give me a little bit more extra juice to compete.”
Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs’ second-year sensation, counted himself as a fan of the idea.
“I would love to. My opinion is that it’s more purposeful,” the Frenchman said. “There’s more pride in it. More stakes.”
Wembanyama was part of the French squad that fell to Team USA in the gold-medal match at last summer’s Olympics.
On paper, injecting national pride into the midseason exhibition could be enough to encourage a bit of hard-nosed play for the first time in a generation. Defense was optional in last year’s NBA All-Star game — the 211-186 score was enough to force a change this season.
NBA officials can look to their counterparts in the NHL for a proof of concept. The NHL replaced its lagging All-Star festivities with the 4 Nations Face-Off this season. The event has been a rousing success.
Players from the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland have laid out their opponents in bone-crunching hits and dropped their gloves to fight in honor of their countries. Ongoing tensions between American and Canadian officials — which have infected some sports fans — have only increased the intensity.
“That was one of the best experiences of my life — just an unbelievable hockey game,” American forward Dylan Larkin said after Saturday’s win over rival Canada sent the U.S. to the championship game.
Most fans agree. The ratings for the tournament have dwarfed regular season NHL action.
Saturday night’s game between the Americans and Canadians averaged 4.4 million viewers on ABC, surpassing the average viewership from last year’s Stanley Cup Final.
Hockey is its own beast, though. NHL players haven’t competed in a true “best-on-best” tournament since 2014 after the league barred players from competing in the Winter Olympics in 2018 and 2022.
“It was, I guess, 10 years of no international hockey exhaled in a minute and a half,” Canada coach Jon Cooper said after players started three fights in the first minute of Saturday’s game.
The 4 Nations Face-Off is also a prelude to next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan. International coaches and squads are experimenting with roster and line-up constructions before vying for Olympic glory in 12 months.
The NBA wouldn’t have the same stakes in its midseason exhibition. But after another lackluster All-Star game, several players are eager for the change.
“Going against the best U.S. players,” Antetokounmpo said after suggesting a squad with himself, Gilgeous-Alexander, Wembanyama and three-time MVP Nikola Jokic. “I think it would be fun.”
— This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.
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