NBA All-Star Game 2025, explained: New format, rosters and how we got here
The All-Star Game, the grand finale of the NBA's 2025 All-Star Weekend, will bring a new format and hopefully a competitive game Sunday to San Francisco's Chase Center.
The league's new format, a mini tournament with four teams and three games composed of 24 of the league's top players, is a chance to make the All-Star Game more appealing for all involved — and for the fans' sake, more enjoyable to watch on television.
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The first team to score 40 or more points is the winner of the reimagined event. There is a prize money pool of $1.8 million, with each player on the championship team earning $125,000. Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal serve as honorary general managers of their respective teams, which they selected via a draft.
The fourth team in Sunday's All-Star tournament is Team C, the winner of Friday night's Rising Stars Challenge. The younger stars competed in a three-game tourney including NBA rookies, sophomores and top G League players. WNBA legend Candace Parker is the honorary GM for Team C.
Here is the bracket with the tournament set to kick off at 8:20 p.m ET.
During a live 'Inside the NBA' broadcast on TNT on Feb. 6, O'Neal, Smith and Barkley led a first-ever All-Star draft where the trio selected eight players from a pool of two dozen of the Eastern and Western Conference's top players based on fan and media voting. That included five 'starters' who were selected by players.
O'Neal selected LeBron James, who is making his 21st appearance at the All-Star Game, with the No. 1 pick to headline a team filled with experienced stars of Boston Celtics' duo Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry and Phoenix Suns' Kevin Durant.
Smith heads a team of younger stars such as Detroit Pistons' Cade Cunningham, New York Knicks' Jalen Brunson and Minnesota Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards. Barkley picked six foreign All-Stars to complete a majority international roster of players like three-time MVP Nikola Jokic and San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama.
A crop of stars from around the world. A new generation taking the league by storm. All-time greats & OGs doing work. 🌟🍿
Presenting the new team names for our #NBAAllStar squads! Watch them battle it out in The Bay on Sunday, Feb. 16 at 8:00pm/et on TNT. pic.twitter.com/5EnOmCjXvo
— NBA (@NBA) February 12, 2025
Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving will replace Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, who will miss the event due to a left calf strain. Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young will replace Mavs center Anthony Davis, who is expected to miss several weeks after suffering a left adductor strain.
As the top teams in the Eastern and Western conferences, Oklahoma City's Mark Daigneault and Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson will each coach a team, and one of their assistants will coach the two remaining teams.
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The All-Star Game — and arguably at times the entire weekend of festivities — has been a tough watch for fans, specifically in the past four years. The Game has been a difficult entertainment product, and the league took notice of that and chose a different route. This year's mini tournament will be the first year since the league inaugurated the game in Boston in 1951.
After the record-setting points put on the scoreboard in last year's All-Star Game, which devolved into a contest to see who could chuck up the most 3-pointers in a defenseless 211-186 game won by the East, concerns were raised about the level of effort and competitiveness the league's best players were putting into the NBA's midseason showcase.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver heard the chatter following the 2024 All-Star Game, and the league went to work. Silver began with admitting he was 'wrong' about players coming out motivated to play a fierce, traditional game in Indianapolis.
The NBA 'went back to the drawing board with the players association,' as Silver noted in December, and made the proper changes not just for the game of basketball to be played in a manner respectable for the players, but for fans who often look forward to the All-Star Game.
'I think we've come to terms that modern All-Stars are in part about competition, but ultimately, they're about entertaining the fans and creating a strong experience for them,' NBA Silver said in an interview in December.
The NBA and Players Association collaboratively announced the agreement of a new formatted mini-tournament in mid-December but talks of changing the format began as early as mid-November, as The Athletic previously reported. Silver connected with Curry and Players association executive director Andre Iguodala, who represented the players' side.
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Last year was the first time the NBA went back to East versus West after a few years of fiddling with the event, including having captains select their rosters, regardless of conference. But it clearly didn't work. This is another chance for the league to prove it still values competition, or players and executives will be at the drawing board again.
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