The NBA officially announced a revamped All-Star format that will feature a four-team tournament.
LAS VEGAS — The NBA All-Star Game will be an All-Star tournament this season. The league announced Tuesday that it finalized plans to use a different format for the upcoming midseason event in San Francisco.
And the score will surely go down, a lot, a lot.
This season’s format is a four-team, three-game, one-night tournamentwith three teams of eight All-Stars each and the fourth team will be the winner of the Rising Stars challenge for first- and second-year players. The winning team of all matches will be the first to score 40 points.
It will take place on February 16 at the home of the Golden State Warriors. The Rising Stars event will take place there on February 14, headlining All-Star Friday.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has wanted a more competitive All-Star event for some time, and This change comes after the teams combined to score a record 397 points (211-186 was the final score) in last season’s game. in Indianapolis.
The teams combined for 289 shot attempts in last year’s game, 94% of which were inside the paint or beyond the 3-point line.
There have been other changes to the All-Star format in recent years. After the first 66 All-Star Games were played basically as a regular game (Eastern Conference vs. Western Conference, four quarters, 12 minutes each), the league switched to a format in which the top vote-getters from each conference acted as captains and were able to choose their teams.
In four of the years in which the captain chose his players, the All-Star Games used objective scoring at the end of games, ensuring that the winner was decided by a successful shot. The fourth quarters were not timed and the winner was the first team to reach the score of the team with the most points after three quarters, plus 24 points (the 24 was a nod to Kobe Bryant’s last jersey number).
Last year, they returned to the East vs. format. West and a record total of points was recorded.