Fixing the NBA All Star Weekend

 For the first time in a long time I didn't watch any of the NBA All Star weekend live. A lot of it has to do with the NHL rolling out their 4 Nations idea which has resulted in some of the best hockey I've ever seen. While an idea like this clearly gets the players motivated, you simply can't execute it in the NBA with the USA being so clearly dominant. Still though, the NBA needs to change something if they want their All-Star weekend to be entertaining again. As a casual hockey fan, I tuned in this weekend to see a showcase of some of the league's best players playing extremely hard and wearing their emotions on their sleave. If you were a casual NBA fan looking to tune into All Star weekend to get an idea of how basketball is looking this year, I highly doubt you'd be turning on a regular season game next week. The weekend was boring, filled with ads and it's best moments came from a guy not even playing in the NBA. Something needs to change and I have some ideas: 

Just do the 1 on 1 Competition Already

Look, fans have been begging for this for YEARS. You wouldn't even have to cancel the 3 point contest or dunk contest this could replace the skills competition on All Star Saturday. The skills competition at it's best is a basketball themed obstacle course, who is that even for? The main argument I hear against this is that players egos would get in the way and nobody would want to be embarrassed in a 1 on 1 tournament. I heard 1 good method to sort of mitigate that on the Hello and Welcome Podcast which anyone reading this should definitely go check out. Their idea was to have it so that all 30 NBA teams need to send a representative for a 1 on 1 tournament. Each player would be seeded where their team is seeded so in the east the first matchup would be a Cavs player vs a Wizard's player and so on. Teams could select whichever player they want, so if Luka Doncic and LeBron James don't want the extra wear and tear, they can send Cam Reddish as their representative instead. I know what you're thinking, won't this just fill up the competition with end of bench dudes? The thing is, I still think this would be really fun. A lot of these guys have some insane skills 1 on 1 that we never get to see showcased in a game because they need to fill a role on their team. Some guys would be motivated to show they have a deeper bag than everyone thinks and I think it'd make for an entertaining product no matter who the players are. After a couple of years of running it this way, I am willing to bet a star finally takes the bait and joins in on the action. Some more tweaks need to be made to this format as I bet you'd need to break guys off into different size categories, but I think it's the best idea I've heard for getting all 30 teams involved in the weekend and offering a product that is actually entertaining for the fans. 

Play a Normal 4 Quarter Basketball Game

This is a simple fix that I can't understand why they've been messing with. If you're a casual fan tuning into NBA All Star Weekend you literally need a basketball enjoying friend to sit there with you explaining all the ways the game is different from an NBA game. By the end of it the viewer comes out confused as to why the league's main showcase of talent is a different game from the 82 games played before. Just have the game be the same rules for simplicity sake. Is this going to result in 250-220 scores again? Yes for sure, but the games are already boring and meaningless so why add extra wrinkles that do nothing to prevent that? A full length normal game between 2 teams is the way the league needs to lean back into. 

More Awards

This is a weird one, but I think the All Star game should have a superlatives style award show at the end of it to offer extra financial incentive for achieving certain things throughout the game.  There should be an award for most hustle, best scorer, best rebounder, most miles ran, best passer and so on. Have a few financially motivated awards for playing actual basketball and see if players get up for the chance to win them. I know for a fact a guy like Kyle Lowry would be going all out to win a best hustler award in an all star game, and if 1 guy starts going hard others either step it up or get embarrassed.

Stop Injecting the thing with Celebrities and Artists

Why is the NBA so obsessed with everything other than the actual basketball? I think a big reason why the players don't take the All Star game even somewhat seriously is because the league makes it an absolute clown show. On All Star Sunday there was about 30 minutes of actual basketball over a 3 hour broadcast, that's ridiculous. If I wanted to watch a concert, I would go on YouTube and find one. If I wanted to watch Kevin Hart do comedy, I would go on Netflix and watch a special. Why are these people a big part of this "basketball" event? I think making the weekend all about basketball again will go a long way in making the players feel more serious about the whole thing. 

I think that's that. I mean my ideas aren't radical at all I don't think. A 1 on 1 event would steal the show every year and people would love it. You can't fake your way through 1 on 1 you'd either have to play hard against 1 other guy or get your butt kicked and get clowned. The rest of my ideas center around simplifying this thing. They've done too many gimmicks the last few years which I think have had the exact opposite effect that they wanted. The game itself is frankly always going to be a meaningless high scoring affair. Why not lean into it and just have those guys hoop in a real normal game format? A casual viewer should be able to turn on the TV and understand exactly what is happening. At this point, you don't need the best all star weekend ever if you're the NBA, but you do need to get back to average.