I don’t spend that much time thinking about the NBA All-Star Game, or what’s reportedly ailing it. It’s like getting into a serious argument about the artistic merits of Marvel movies with another adult. They might entertain you and me, because they appeal to our sense of nostalgia (and the buying power within), but they’re made for kids.
With that out of the way, I do have a mild, hopeful prediction for this year’s game.
The last best All-Star Game I watched was in Chicago in 2020, and it was made that way because Kyle Lowry took three charges. Three charges! Many people were annoyed by it, namely LeBron James and James Harden who were at the other end of Lowry’s talents (the third was Kawhi Leonard, who was unbothered), but it was an injection of competitive spirit into a game that can get flat, fast.
It was also an anomaly. Not for Lowry (asking Lowry not to take charges would be like telling Steph Curry not to take threes), but for the game itself. A funny little hiccup that every player on the floor reacted to, whether they liked it or not. In their annoyance, James and Harden dug in, in their ability to cause annoyance and get under their rivals skin, Lowry’s ‘Team Giannis’ did the same. The crowd was engaged, excited, and that rare tendril of collective awareness in witnessing something unique happening ran through it.
This year’s game also promises an anomaly. The format has switched to a four-team tournament-style game, with three of the teams made up of this year’s NBA All-Star picks, but it’s the fourth team I’m interested in.
That team will be the best of the three that play in Friday night’s Rising Stars tournament, made up of Rookies, Sophomores and NBA G League. Whichever team advances into Sunday night’s competition (I have a hunch it’ll be the Sophomores, boasting Victor Wembanyama — but stranger things have happened) is going to want to win.
Given that big a stage, and a chance to knock out the best in the league, there’s a rare window for a meaningful upset. The more All-Star Games players tend to have under their belts, the more lacklustre the whole affair becomes. That’s not a knock on anyone specifically, it’s human nature. Efforts become less wide-eyed than simply going through the motions. Younger players don’t have that facade of expectancy yet when it comes to the All-Star Game, like Lowry, their baseline is to play hard. Moreover, on a team of their peers, no one is going to single them out and tell them to relax a little bit.
Not to draw too close a parallel, but it reminds me of the Paris Olympics this past summer when existential panic set in that the USA might lose. The veteran stars of the NBA might be fine embarrassing one another at All-Star — you only have to look as far back as last year’s game — but they sure aren’t going to let younger players do it.
Money’s been the traditional incentive to get All-Star players to win. Or more importantly, compete. But pride is entirely another. This will be LeBron James’ 21st All-Star Game, a league record, and I can’t imagine him wanting pair that accolade with losing to the generation of athletes eager to replace him. On the flip side of the same coin, this is the best chance as any a group of young players will have to put an emphatic end to the argument that the league is short on talent — generational or otherwise.
