The NBA All-Star Game becomes a tournament to make it more attractive.
The NBA has announced that the All-Star Game will be converted into an exciting tournament format this season. The event will take place on February 16th at the Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors, in San Francisco.
The new format calls for a four-team tournament, with three teams consisting of eight All-Stars each and the fourth team being made up of the winners of the Rising Stars Challenge. Each game will be played until a team has reached 40 points.
New format for more competition
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has long been looking for ways to make the All-Star Game more competitive. This change follows last year’s game in Indianapolis, where the teams combined for a record 397 points.
This absurd result caused massive criticism not only from the fans, but also from the players. “Obviously it’s expected and it makes sense for them to try to make a change,” said the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is expected to be selected as an All-Star for the third time.
“At the end of the day it depends on whether the players really want to fight and I would like to see that. I would love to be a part of it and hopefully it happens,” the OKC star said.
Review of previous changes
There have been several changes to the All-Star Game in recent years. After 66 games in the traditional East versus West format, the league adopted a system in which the highest-voted players from each conference captained their teams.
LeBron James has been captain six times, Giannis Antetokounmpo three times, Kevin Durant twice and Stephen Curry once. In four of these years, a goal point was introduced where the game was decided with a successful throw. Last year they returned to the East vs. West format, which resulted in record points.
All-Star voting and team selection
Voting for the All-Stars begins on Thursday and remains unchanged. Fans can vote daily for three frontcourt and two backcourt players from both conferences. These votes are weighted at 50%, while a media panel and current players each account for 25% of the votes.
The NBA head coaches select the 14 reserve players. However, there will be 15 starting players on game night, as each of the three teams starts with five players.
Teams will be selected from a pool of 24 All-Stars on February 6 by TNT experts Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. The teams have their names: Team Shaq, Team Charles and Team Kenny. The winning Rising Stars team will be named Team Candace, in honor of Candace Parker.
Coaching staff and prize money
The coaching staffs of the teams with the best records in the Eastern and Western Conferences will coach the teams in the All-Star Game.
Coaches from Milwaukee and Minnesota are excluded this year because they coached last year. The prize pool for the All-Star Game is $1.8 million.
Each player on the winning team will receive $125,000, the players on the second-place team will receive $50,000, and the players from the teams eliminated in the semifinals will each receive $25,000.
