Adam Silver says NBA might be ‘past the point’ of competitive ASG; could Caitlin Clark join Steph and Sabrina?

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Instead of trying to make the All-Star Game more competitive, the NBA might instead focus on doing “different things” during All-Star weekend, commissioner Adam Silver told CNN Sunday, pointing to this year’s 3-point contest between Sabrina Ionescu and Stephen Curry. He also addressed the possibility of Caitlin Clark, who will all but certainly be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft next month, joining Ionescu and Curry next time.

In an interview on “King Charles,” Silver told Gayle King and Charles Barkley that the league will consider a Team USA vs. Team World format for the All-Star Game. He is not convinced, however, that any format change will result in the All-Stars playing hard.

Silver said that “our feeling going into Indiana” for this year’s All-Star Game was that “we had one more opportunity to go, in essence, back to basketball.” Silver called Larry Bird the “honorary captain” for the weekend; at the annual legends brunch, Bird urged the players to compete. There was an emphasis on making the game itself more closely resemble a normal NBA game: no more pregame draft, no more Elam Ending, less elaborate pregame introductions, a shorter halftime show and a return to East vs. West. None of this worked. The final score was 211-186.

“It was a great weekend, but it wasn’t a basketball game,” Silver said. “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…

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Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/adam-silver-says-nba-might-be-past-the-point-of-competitive-asg-could-caitlin-clark-join-steph-and-sabrina/

Author : James Herbert

Publish date : 2024-03-24 16:58:44

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