Should the NBA All-Star game be abolished?

Yet another All-Star weekend has come and gone this NBA season and this one was just as unremarkable as the last ten that came before it.

The league has tried year after year to make improvements to the game, originally a 48-minute East vs West format, has seen drafts made by top players and legends of the game.

This time Sunday night consisted of a 4-team mini-tournament featuring 3 All-Star lineups picked by Inside the NBA’s Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith.

The fourth team consisted of the winners from the previous night’s Rising Stars game led by former WNBA star Candace Parker.

But where and when did the All-Star Game go downhill?

First of all, I should get out of the way that this was never a highly competitive game like something out of the playoffs, it was more of the best players in the world showing off their skills to one another.

What I mean by this is that the All-Star was a time where those debates like “Is Allen Iverson or Kobe winning in a 1v1?” would get answered.

A balance of competitiveness and good fun, it wouldn’t be until the late 2010’s where fans would see a strong decline in effort by the players.

One moment fans point out as one of the shifting points is in 2015 where an injured Carmelo Anthony would play in the game, hurting his recovery and missing the rest of the season.

This alongside other parts of the weekend like the Dunk Contest and Skills Challenge becoming less of a spectacle at the same time made the entire event feel like less of a must-see.

The last “competitive” All-Star was in 2020, shortly after the passing of Kobe Bryant. Ever since, it has turned into a glorified shootaround where none of the players care about winning.

But what can they do?

A few ideas have been thrown around such as the players doing a 1v1 tournament, with the winner getting a huge cash bonus and the bragging rights to say they’re un guardable to the rest of the league.

Another idea is similar to the winnings of the In-Season Tournament, which actually has seen some success, awarding a bonus to the teammates of the winning players or even home court advantage in the Finals to the winning conference.

Whichever way they do it, it needs to be soon. With the NBA signing a new streaming deal alongside Disney, Comcast, and Amazon. If viewership doesn’t increase soon, the league could soon see some financial troubles.

Chris Vadnais is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email cmv5562@psu.edu.