With the 2025 All-Star tournament now wrapped up, we got our first chance to see the new format in play. To say fans did not respond well to the 2025 All-Star game would be an understatement.
But it isn’t just the fans who were frustrated. Damian Lillard told Rachel Nichols that he wants to see the NBA return to an East vs. West format, and even suggested an All-Snub team for players who narrowly miss out on being nominated as All-Stars.
“Dame Lillard wants to go back to an East-West All-Star game, says he’d be fine with home court in the Finals being on the line. Alternately, he says if this format stays, maybe an ‘All-Snub’ team would be better as the 4th team instead of the Rising Stars.”
The NBA tried a new format this weekend to try and revive the excitement surrounding the NBA All-Star game after years of fan complaints and dissatisfaction over the lack of entertainment provided by the players during the annual exhibition. This structure saw three teams made up of All-Stars along with one Rising Stars team playing a four-team mini-tournament to be crowned the winners.
Lillard isn’t the only one who has asked questions of the new format, as Draymond Green went off about the tournament, specifically how the presence of Rising Stars devalues the honor of being named All-Stars.
While Draymond definitely has a point, it is hard to ignore the fact that the new tournament was introduced because the current crop of star players was putting in very little effort during games to make sure that the viewing audience would be satisfied.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver even spoke to players ahead of the All-Star game to urge them to compete at a high level. However, his words appear to have fallen on deaf ears, as the 2025 NBA All-Star Game was yet another in a long list of performances that leave a lot to be desired from a fan perspective.
Silver is under pressure to help turn around the declining ratings of the NBA. The All-Star game has always been an exhibition that fans look forward to on an annual basis.
But the last few years have done a lot of damage to audience patience and goodwill because the players have been regularly phoning it in at the All-Star game, treating it as an inconsequential game that they can take it easy during in order to get some rest from the grueling grind of the NBA season.
The fact of the matter is that until players start taking the game seriously again, no format changes or glossy additions to the presentation of the All-Star game will improve the current state of affairs. The best course of action might be to add something of genuine value as an incentive to the players representing the NBA.
What that may be is up to the league to determine. But fan sentiment will only improve when they see some tangible changes in player performance.
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