The fans were left bitterly disappointed by the 2024 All-Star weekend and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is considering making some changes.
The All-Star weekend was saved by the three-point contest between Steph Curry and Sabrina Ionescu, and the the Skills Competition, 3-Point Shootout and Dunk Contest were also mildly entertaining.
But the All-Star game itself just looks like a practice run and Silver knows something has got to give.
“It was a great weekend, but it wasn’t a basketball game,” Silver said during an interview on King Charles. “And had I not seen what happened this year, I think we were ready to do US vs. international. I’m just wondering now, and it’s a good conversation to have, whether this generation of players — and the teams are [complicit] too because nobody wants them to play hard at the All-Star Game, nobody wants them to get hurt — they see it as a midseason break. I think of something that was a huge attraction, for example: Sabrina against Steph. I mean, it says so much about the game. I think of, again, our generation: Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs, what was it, the Battle of the Sexes? This was the opposite. This was, as Sabrina said, just two great shooters out on the floor. So I think, maybe, as opposed to trying to create a super-competitive basketball game, which I’m not sure the teams or the players really want at that moment, we should do more fun [events].”
He added, “we should just be looking to do different things and just make it a celebration of basketball. I mean, we’re going to look at US vs. international. I just think maybe we’re past that point where we’re going to play a truly competitive game. And by the way, it’s happened in other sports.”
Silver admitted that the “worst part” about the All-Star game was that players told him before and after the game that they knew full well NBA fans were unhappy by their lack of effort and blames himself.
“I accept responsibility, as the commissioner of the league,” Silver said. “I think we should’ve known at this point for an All-Star Game — as I started to say before, the NFL Pro Bowl, [they] moved it to flag football — there’s just a recognition it’s a different time.”
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