NBA All-Star 2025 is over. Should the league stick with its new format?

New York Times

17-02-2025

The Bounce Newsletter | This is The Athletic's daily NBA newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Bounce directly in your inbox.
A dude named Jaren hit a logo 3-pointer in a mini contest with Damian Lillard to win $100,000 and avoid an incredibly awkward Mr. Beast moment.
Year 1 of the new format: How'd it go?
The new format for the 74th annual NBA All-Star Game hit our televisions and streaming devices on Sunday, and it was certainly different. Remember last year, when commissioner Adam Silver was less than enthused following a 211-186 victory by the East? The league tweaked the format from two 12-man teams from opposing conferences to four teams in a mini-tournament.
Advertisement
Three of the teams were composed of eight All-Stars each, and the fourth team was the winning squad (plus a young player added) from the Rising Stars Challenge on Friday night (we'll get to that controversy in a bit). The mini-games were a race to 40 points. Shaquille O'Neal's OGs team won the 'All-Star Championship' by first beating Candace Parker's Rising Stars 42-35 and then Chuck's International Stars 41-25 in the final. Steph Curry was named the Kobe Bryant All-Star Game MVP.
LeBron James (ankle) and Anthony Edwards (groin) ended up not playing for their respective teams.
Did everybody buy in? Damian Lillard said he felt the games were 'a little bit more competitive' compared to last year. And, for the most part, the players did put forth a better effort this year than what we saw in previous matchups. We should also remember that's a very low bar to clear. Earlier in the weekend, Draymond Green expressed his disgust over the Rising Stars being allowed to compete on Sunday. Just in case you think he might've been misquoted, he doubled down as a member of the TNT broadcast last night after the first mini-game.
'You work all year to be an All-Star, and you get to play up to 40 [points], and you're done. This is so unfair to Victor Wembanyama, who just took this game really seriously. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who just took this game really seriously. When you talk about chasing after the points records, Melo and Kobe and all these guys, who have had great scoring nights. They don't get the opportunity to do that with this game. All so we can watch some Rising Stars. We're about to watch the Olympic team, now we get the treat of watching the Olympic team play against a U-19 team. Come on, what are we doing? This is ridiculous.'
Charles Barkley didn't agree with Draymond, either as a company man for TNT or just because he understands why we're here. He likened it to kids being mad they have to clean up a mess they made. The players in previous years did not compete in the other format, so the league changed it.
Advertisement
Was it a better product? For the television audience, kind of? In a three-hour window, we only saw about 45 minutes of basketball between the three games. I would imagine in the arena, it was a weird, slow night. It takes some getting used to, but the competitive aspect of it did seem improved.
Is the All-Star Game fixed? No, not at all. The night wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. It was clunky, which can be smoothed out in future iterations (if this format stays). It's only fixed when the players consistently care, though.
I highly recommend the No Dunks crew recapping the All-Star tournament. Spoiler alert: they hated it. 😆
2025 Hall of Fame finalists have been named
👏 Closer to Springfield! Carmelo Anthony, Sue Bird, Dwight Howard and Maya Moore headline the list. Marques Johnson deserves enshrinement!
🏀 Curry at Oracle. If you're a basketball fan of any sort, you should always read Marcus Thompson writing about Curry, who enjoyed being back where he became an icon.
🫂 Empathy for Dallas. Silver addressed the Luka Dončić trade and how Mavericks fans are feeling. But he's empathetic to the franchise too?
🗣️ Dubs' fifth title coming? Green says the Warriors will win it all this season. They are 10th in the West.
We should shame stars into competing in it
Mac McClung became the first participant in NBA Dunk Contest history to win three straight titles. Nate Robinson is the only other player to win three contests, but they weren't in a row. The 26-year-old G Leaguer put on another fantastic display of creativity and jumped over people holding the ball for him. Maybe the craziest one of all four of his perfect 50s was recreating and improving upon the time Blake Griffin leaped over a KIA. At least McClung didn't jump over the hood.
This is undoubtedly insane. But if I may be a bit of a curmudgeon for a minute, as impressive as McClung has been in these contests, there is a part of me that gets sick of him pushing off of his prop participants when grabbing the ball to get a bit of a boost. I do not doubt that these are hard things to do, but the replays usually take me out of it a bit. The thing is, it keeps working for him, so why stop? Plus, he's a G Leaguer who keeps winning $100k in these contests, so that part of it is a cool story.
Advertisement
Stephon Castle of the Spurs had a couple of brilliant dunks (this required ridiculous timing) but couldn't compete with McClung. Maybe the best part of the night was the potential for shaming the stars into actually doing the contest. Ja Morant has never participated in the dunk contest, but he tweeted that McClung made him want to do it. Then, he asked Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon if they were interested. At least LaVine seems to be considering going for his third dunk title, even though he hasn't participated since 2016.
McClung started getting thrown into forced conversations about maybe being the best NBA dunker ever. Re-f—ing-lax on that. His three wins don't equal what Vince Carter did in Oakland 25 years ago, and they don't hold a candle to the show LaVine and Gordon put on in 2016. I'm not even sure McClung surpassed Jason Richardson's efforts. Even though McClung was great in his own right, he won three of the weakest contests we've ever seen.
If it gets the stars to come back to the competition and not pull a LeBron (getting caught up in the moment and teasing us with something he never ended up doing), then maybe McClung's dunk legacy grows beyond these three straight wins.
More from the weekend's events
How was the Rising Stars challenge? It was fine! The G League squad made it to the final but lost to Castle's squad. Castle won Rising Stars MVP.
Who won the Skills Challenge? The Cavs won with Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell besting Draymond and Moses Moody in the final. Mobley and Mitchell now officially have the most NBA skills.
So, it was boring? Not at all! Victor Wembanyama and Chris Paul tried to game the system by not actually taking shots and just throwing the ball toward the rim. They were disqualified, and an NBA official awkwardly denied sideline reporter Allie LaForce an interview with the Spurs on live TV.
What happened in the 3-point contest? Fun but a bit anticlimactic. Buddy Hield (31 points) put on a dazzling show in the first round. He was joined by Tyler Herro and Darius Garland in the final. Herro put up 24 points, and Hield needed to make his entire final rack to win. He missed the fourth shot to finish one behind Herro, your new 3-point champion. One quick, easy fix: Eight contestants should turn into four in the second round. Then, the contest should have a final between two players, not three.
Nuggets, Celtics trending the finals
Even coming out of the All-Star Weekend, the market trends in the NBA matter. In fact, they matter now more than ever because this is the final stretch run of the regular season for everybody. Two teams we expected to face off in the NBA Finals last year are trending toward making that a reality this year. Here's your latest NBA Stock Market!
Advertisement
📈 Nuggets (36-19): This is worthy of a deeper dive in a future edition of The Bounce, but the Nuggets look like contenders again. Since Dec. 8, they have gone 25-8, have been the third-best team in the NBA (when considering record and net rating), and they're within a whisper of the No. 2 seed.
📉The Suns (26-28) have been in a bit of a slump. In the month of February, they are 1-6 with losses to Portland (twice), and then very understandable losses to the Thunder, Nuggets, Grizzlies and Rockets. Their one win in this stretch is an overtime victory against the Jazz. I'm not sure they have it in them to turn it around.
📈Celtics (39-16): They're baaaaaaack! The defending champions have won seven of their last eight games. After two months of shooting a paltry league average (35 percent) from 3-point range, they're up above 38 percent in the month of February. The Celtics won't catch the Cavs in the standings, but Cleveland can't feel great about how Boston is playing.
📉Heat (25-28): In the last two weeks, the Heat have the same record as Charlotte and Toronto. No, they haven't been killing it. Miami is 1-5 in its last six games and rode a four-game losing streak into the All-Star break. The Jimmy Butler trade drama certainly contributed to this, but the post-trade version of this team still can't score.
📈Pistons (29-26): We might be looking at a team that goes from one of the worst in NBA history a year ago to a top six team in the East. Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff has done an excellent job, and we've seen Cade Cunningham take a leap in learning how to close games out. The Pistons' first five games after the break are tough, but their offense and defense have both been great lately.
📉Rockets (34-21): I'm not totally concerned about the Rockets because they're well-coached and have so much talent. With that being said, Houston has seen a recent dip by losing seven of its last nine games. The Rockets' defensive slippage has been noteworthy. They're currently down to fourth in the West and sit 3.5 games ahead of Minnesota.
📫 Love The Bounce? Check out The Athletic's other newsletters.