Bill Streicher/Imagn
The NBA All-Star Game is as good as dead to fans these days. Players don’t care, so why should fans? Add to that the fact that no superstars enter the NBA Slam Dunk Contest and few entire the 3-Point Contest and it’s easy to see why the All-Star Weekend as a whole is becoming less and less relevant each year.
The league, understandably, is trying everything it can to combat that fact. It has changed the format of the game multiple times since 2018, including a new format which features a four-team tournament rather than a single game. But the league isn’t stopping there. According to Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal, the NBA is looking at any and every way it could possibly enhance the entire All-Star Weekend.
That includes the possibility of including Bronny James, who has played just 13 games in the NBA as a rookie and is averaging just 0.3 points, 0.4 rebounds and 0.3 assists in those games. Hardly All-Star Weekend worthy numbers. But according to Friend, that doesn’t much matter to the league.
“The league has thought all of it through as it brings its All-Star Game off life support, even the remote possibility that Bronny James — as part of the G League team during the Rising Stars Challenge — could end up facing his father in a Sunday night semifinal,” Friend writes.
“It could happen,” president of league operations Byron Spruell said. “It’s a scenario that we could have. Remember last year, G League won in the first round of Rising Stars.”
Ultimately, the only real fix is finding a way for players to compete hard in an exhibition setting. Whether that means putting more money on the line or including actual stakes, it’s the only real answer. But until the NBA accepts that fact, it will just have to live with a subpar All-State Game product just like the NFL, MLB and NHL.