In most cases NBA All-Star Weekend is a flop.
For years the highlight of the weekend came on Saturday night as high flyers rattled rims and marksmen scorched pylon in the dunk and three-point contests, respectively.
The actual All-Star Game on the other hand has been a complete flop for basically the past decade. The game’s luster had wilted away with players subjecting themselves to olé defense and mind-numbingly little effort. In itself it was basically a combination of the dunk and three-point contests, just with 10 players on the court instead of one.
But a couple of small tweaks to the format changed it this year for the better.
First the NBA decided to do away with the traditional Eastern Conference versus Western Conference format. Instead the league opted to let the leading vote getters from each conference (LeBron James in the East and Stephen Curry in the West) select their own teams in a draft from the pot of selected all-stars. While the league could have added a little more intrigue with letting the draft be televised, it still made the right choice.
In most cases in the Association the top players in the league rarely change teams, let alone conferences, and end up playing with a lot of the same guys year after year in the exhibition game. However, this year the new format allowed James to team up with the likes of Anthony Davis and Kevin Durant, and Curry team up with Joel Embiid. The matchups from position to position simply became more fun as a result.
The second thing the NBA did was change how much players receive for winning or losing the mid-February exhibition. In previous years players on the winning side received $50,000 and players on the losing side received $25,000.
But this year the NBA decided to bump up the amount players on the winning side received to $100,000 without changing the amount for players who lost the game. I know all of these players make millions and millions of dollars, but a difference of $75,000 still means a lot to them.
As a result players actually cared about winning or losing. Since they cared about winning for a change both teams actually played defense, resulting in the lowest scoring All-Star Game since 2013. Not only was the 148-145 final score in favor of Team LeBron a respectable margin in today’s landscape, the game was actually decided by the defense played in the final minute.
After James made a layup to put his squad up three, Team Stephen had a chance to tie the game late and send it into overtime. Curry took a handoff from Embiid at the top of the key and the presence of James and Paul George forced him to hold onto the ball rather than rise up for the jumper, and he was forced to drive around the arc in search of a better look. What he found though was Kevin Durant waiting for him with James still trailing him.
Curry tried to split the double team to get a look but was forced to pass to DeMar DeRozan in the corner. DeRozan tried to fake a drive down the baseline, but Durant wasn’t fooled since he knew DeRozan had to shoot a three-pointer to tie the game. When DeRozan pirouetted in an attempt to free himself and rise for the shot, Durant’s long arms were right in his face denying the shot.
That one sequence would have made the game enjoyable by itself, but the entire fourth quarter was played that way. Watching the best players on the planet actually compete on the same floor is what the game was supposed to always be about, and now it finally is again. Thankfully.
