NBA reportedly ‘in serious discussions’ on four-team tournament for All-Star Game

Barack Obama spoke for all of us and pulled no punches, telling Tyrese Haliburton, “Y’all got to have a little more pride in that All-Star Game.”

“Y’all got to have a little more pride in that All-Star Game… It’s an insult to the game.” -Obama confronts Tyrese about the NBA All Star Game pic.twitter.com/ynmGQaJfBm

— TheYoungManAndTheThree (@OldManAndThree) October 23, 2024

The All-Star Game has been a disappointment for more than a decade now. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has echoed what Obama said — remember how he handed out the trophy after last year’s game, “To the Eastern Conference All-Stars, you scored the most points. Well, congratulations.” — and done so for years. The All-Star Game has devolved into a non-competitive, hard-to-watch culmination of a weekend celebrating the sport.

Silver hasn’t given up on the game. Yet. And he and the league have another solution:

This year’s All-Star Game is likely to feature four teams of eight players — three “All-Star” teams plus the team that wins Friday’s Rising Stars Challenge for rookies and sophomores — competing in a mini-knockout tournament, a story broken by Shams Charania of ESPN. The report says the league is “in serious discussions” about this format change.

League officials discussed the new format on Friday with the Competition Committee consisting of governors, team executives, players, coaches and union personnel, sources said. The four teams would face each other in matchups — for instance, Team 1 versus Team 3 and Team 2 versus Team 4 — and the winners move on to the final round of the tournament.

This is not unlike what the NHL has done with its All-Star Game, although that league went even further and made it a 3-on-3 game, an entertaining exhibition that doesn’t resemble the sport during the regular season and playoffs. Silver is trying to avoid what the NFL ultimately had to do — there is no Pro Bowl game anymore, just a flag football exhibition and some skills competitions.

NBA players — including Stephen Curry, whose Warriors will host this season’s All-Star Game in San Francisco come February — and team executives have been…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba-reportedly-serious-discussions-four-234443653.html

Author : NBC Sports

Publish date : 2024-11-15 23:44:00

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