Gina Schreier ’26, Sports Staff Writer

Milwaukee Bucks point guard Damian Lillard faces off against Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry in the 2024 NBA All-Star Game. (Photo courtesy of Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

The NBA’s annual All-Star Weekend entails three exciting events for basketball fans, or, at least it has in the past. Last year’s All-Star Game, however, left many fans feeling underwhelmed by the quality of play. Following that disappointment, many fans speculated that the league would have to get involved in order to ensure that the players deliver an engaging event in the future. Their conclusions turned out to be correct: the NBA has released a brand new format for the 2025 All-Star Game, and it promises to shake things up.

This year, the NBA All-Star Weekend is headed to the Chase Center in San Francisco to be hosted by the Golden State Warriors from February 14 to February 16.  The weekend is filled with highly-anticipated competitions, from the Rising Stars Game to the All-Star Celebrity Game, culminating in the All-Star Game filled with the league’s most talented players and fan favorites. 

Rather than being a stand-alone game as it has been for the past 73 years, the 74th NBA All-Star Game will be played as a short tournament, in which four teams will play three games on Sunday night. Two teams will face off in the first semifinal for Game 1, the other two will play the second semifinal for Game 2, and the winners of those two games will advance to compete in the championship, Game 3. In all three games, the first team to reach or surpass 40 points will be the winner.

Each team will have eight people, and three of the teams will be made up of the NBA All-Stars. The fourth team will be the winners of the Rising Star Game, giving a new level of importance to that event. 

The participating teams will be named for TNT NBA analysts Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Candace Parker. Barkley, O’Neal, and Smith will serve as honorary general managers (GMs) for the three teams of NBA All-Stars, and Parker will be the honorary GM for the Rising Stars. 

Last year, many who tuned into the NBA All-Star Game were underwhelmed due to what they perceived as players’ lack of effort and seriousness. Critics went so far as to call into question the point of holding an All-Star Game if the performance is not All-Star caliber. Some participants have confirmed this observation, such as Minnesota Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards, who explained his mindset following his appearance in the 2024 All-Star Game. “For me, it’s an All-Star Game, so I don’t think I will ever look at it like being super competitive.”

This criticism has been echoed right here at NA. Andrew Garrod ’26, NA basketball player and NBA fan, noted his discontent with last year’s game. “I was on my phone while watching it, because I was just not that intrigued. They don’t take it seriously, and it was just kind of boring.”

Could these changes fix the issues that are coming for fans of the All-Star Game? Possibly. The new rule declaring the winner to be the first team to 40 points certainly indicates an emphasis on promoting defensive efforts, and the tournament format could create the “win or go home” mentality that fans seemed to miss at past All-Star games. 

Whatever the reasoning, this change seems to promise a more exciting and interactive game for fans and players alike. Only time will tell if the league has finally figured out how to coax the performance that the fans demand from the game’s biggest stars.

Updated: Friday, March 14

The tournament kicked off with O’Neal beating Parker 42-35. The next game saw Barkley’s team beat Smith’s Rising Stars 41-32, resulting in a final between O’Neal and Barkley’s squads. Neither of the semifinal scores were very close, and in the final the difference was even greater. O’Neal’s team defeated Barkley’s in a 41-25 blowout and became the first squad to win the All-Star Game in tournament format.

Despite efforts to revitalize the All-Star Game, the event still received mixed reviews and poor ratings. Viewership fell 13% from the 2024 game, indicating that he tournament format made the event even less appealing to some fans.