They fixed the All Star Game.
Mission accomplished. Credit where it’s due. They came up with a way to make the players care. I’m enjoying it.
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yeah the format doesn’t matter. its about having a dude who tries. then other dudes try too. happened back in the day with Iverson when the east had a huge comeback cause the Answer was playing.
wemby and ant are why this game was good. the skeletor comish is irrelevant
You need a majority of one roster to care. Smaller rosters is a big help.
The format matters. It’s not the only thing that matters, but it matters. Back in the days, the players would try came the 4th quarter. This format just made every game the 4th quarter.
This. It’s easier to try when it’s only 12 minutes
“I must make this good thing contentious. It cannot possibly be a culmination of various different factors. It HAS to be one or the other!!!!!!!”
My donkey brain can only handle one simple reason why something is either good or bad, there’s no other way around it.
Kobe, Garnett, and Iverson are names that come to mind when it comes to all star game intensity
KLow out there taking charges In an ASG and gets no respect? That was an entertaining ASG.
Can’t name everyone man lol
I think the format also helps by making it several shorter games instead of one long game that they can coast for the first 3 quarters of.
agreed. Only real critique is the championship game having a tired USA team vs. a well rested USA team. Maybe they need a 4th team lmao
Or do the mini tournament on Saturday and then 3pt contest and finals game on Sunday
Would save Saturday viewership but would the all-stars actually be available on Saturday?
If they’re told to be, yes?
Some dudes can’t play back-to-backs.
Doing 5 man teams and stretching it across the weekend and putting the other events in between to build in some rest could be an improvement.
Next years all star game should just be Ant and Wemby are team captains and they get to draft their own teams lmfao.
Kawhi still gonna drop 30 on the other team somehow
Remember two days ago when everyone was mad at Ant for not caring about All Star
Well he never has. If you watch the previous years, he didn’t give a fuck. There was a game where he shot with only his left hand
KD cranked it up to Keleven.
Send da burner accounts.
The format literally doesn’t mater. Its about having at least one guy who cares. Wemby set the tone and the rest followed.
The format definitely matters too, four 12 minute games has more meaningful minutes than one 48 minute one
Exactly.
Correct. And the play turns to crap once it’s not competitive (see game 4 today) and with a single 48 minute game there is high likelihood that one team gets a big lead and then you’ve got nothing but junk play thereafter.
Nah it’s more than one guy this year. There have been previous years when a player tried to be competitive but everyone else was chillin
yeah Ant said seeing Wemby take it seriously made him want to match his intensity.
These guys don’t wanna get blocked on one end and then get dunked on the other end constantly so they play accordingly.
Wemby set the tone, Ant responded in kind.
Most of the guys on the first US team are young dudes, they just followed the intensity of these two.
Also, Wemby is unique in the sense that when he tries hard, he can show you up on both ends of the floor. Most guys don’t care if you dunk on them in the all star game, they can just get out of the way.
Getting blocked two possessions on a row is a completely different thing, that really shows you up and ramp up the intensity.
I remember one year where Lowry was just running around trying to take charges it was incredible
That was the one right after Kobe’s death. They had everyone wearing 8 and 24 and the scoring change. I think for that one, the players felt compelled to go very hard when the game was tight to honour him.
They had everyone wearing 8 and 24
Team Giannis wore No. 24 to honor Kobe, while everyone on Team LeBron [wore ] No. 2 in honor of Gianna
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-all-star-game-2020-kobe-bryant-tributes-trae-youngs-mvp-chase-elam-ending-among-20-reasons-to-watch/
The elam ending with Kobe twist was 3 quarters . Then clock was switched off and first to score 24 points more than whatever the team leading at end of 3rd quarter had - wins
He drew two charges, including one on Kawhi. It was glorious.
Giannis when he first got there. He went hard his first few ASG.
Russ that one year too
Wemby started off intense, and he’s playing the young dudes on team World, who also responded by playing hard.
Edwards and Cade decided they are going to match the effort.
It takes two to tango.
KD definitely helped
there was that one year when tatum and brown were on opposite teams, would suddenly give a shit when they iso each other, then go back to not caring when anyone else had the ball
this makes me wonder if the “fix” for the ASG, is just putting an appearance limit on a player’s careers. like you can only play in 10 ASG or something.
need to keep the game relatively young with players who have something to prove like ant and wemby. and it would keep all the oldheads out who are jaded about being selected to play and it would keep their indifferent attitudes away from the game. it would also create a sense of urgency. you only get 10 games to go all out, so you have to make the most of every ASG appearance.
Yea Wemby already played pretty hard last year but no one followed suit
Nah, that’s definitely part of it but credit to this format. Splitting guys up by “identity” is contributing to the effort.
Yep. And the smaller rosters make a big difference too. No one wants to get embarrassed.
Yeah, that’s a good point too. Maybe even shorten the period to 10 minutes and guys will be forced to play with higher effort knowing there’s only a short amount of time.
Luka and Jokic still don’t care. Wemby saved it
Always gonna be guys that don’t care. It was still competitive between the two USA teams when Wemby wasn’t playing.
Ya but he set the tone early trying hard. The format didn’t really matter but happy to see them game back
I’m gonna disagree. The format did matter. Wemby also mattered.
Kawhi seemed to care tonight.
Of course they don’t care they are heavy minutes restrictions as both are coming off injuries.
Still don’t care? How? It was already announced they’ll be on minutes restriction and play only the first one. If they were fully healthy, everyone def would’ve played the way everyone was playing.
Feel like now that this concept has shown potential they can make it a 4 team East vs West tourney. East A vs West B / East B vs West A
Getting called the “B Team” will definitely light a fire in them lol
They’ll just make a corny name for it, like Team Stars and Team Stripes
It’s corny, but I see why they went with it. The young guys being the rising “stars” and the old heads earned their “stripes”.
I think I just have an aversion to the pseudo patriotic reference
Yep, they can definitely try it. I kind of like the World concept adding just another layer of identity, though.
They sort of did that last year but forced it too much by divvying teams up by the Inside crew. A straight USA/World split makes way more sense.
Yeah, I think the identity thing is just human nature. Great setup and Wemby definitely helped it.
If you want it extra spicy next year we can do it by skin color
Black vs white vs mixed skin
Not enough all star white dudes
I don’t get why people keep on saying this, wemby tried last year and it didn’t rub off. It’s not a wemby thing.
Lol yeah Giannis tried the same thing a few years back and it didn’t matter, Cade KAT and Duren were all trying from the jump this year
Because they don’t want to give credit to Adam Silver.
Because they just repeat what they hear
There are just a ton of Wemby glazers here
I disagree, the format is quick 12 min games with actual story behind each team, the young guns, the old heads and the guys united against USA. It helps the players stay fresh. If it would be a tpyical 4 quarter game it wouldnt work as well
I think it’s also grouping the young guys and the older guys together.
I think keeping the old guys off the floor for game one helped a lot.
Agreed. Tribalism takes over when you have an identity. When you have uniformity you try harder
And Cade
And Book
Wemby, Cade, Ant and Maxey
Disagree. The format allowed Wemby and his intentions to put pressure on the others. With three teams, Wemby can embarrass anyone who’s not trying to win.
That didn’t happen in previous years because the roster for each team was 12 guys and the majority would not play hard.
All credit to him for the spark though.
I think keeping the games to 12 minutes encourages the guys to keep pushing in smaller doses to
Surprisingly Ant cares too.
Which guy matters though. KAT dropped 50+ and everyone clowned him for caring a couple years ago. Wemby different though.
This is why Wemby will be the face of the league
Diggin this ethical intensity!
The format added to it this year. World players want to represent. Wemby did set the tone though, but I def think USA vs World is a highlight
No, the format definitely matters. No chance these guys give huge effort for a full game length
credit KD for antagonizing half these guys lmao
Damn one of those guys prolly released his files to get him to shut down
Lmao.
I’m digging it. Every game is like the fourth quarter of a very close game. Players are locked in. Defense is being played.
It’s the best All Star game I’ve seen in ten years.
Personally for me it is right behind the 2020 ASG
And no one had to die to make this one good.
Except Jabari Smith Jr
that you know of, anyway
Was that the one where Anthony Davis hit a free throw in the last play to win the game by a couples of points? For me, that was the last best game.
The one change I’d make is the winner of the round robin should be able to pick up the best player from the losing team especially if the winners play three games in a row.
I thought this too! I said man they’re exhausted, if they could added someone from their previous opponents’ roster to give them a boost it would be cool! But if you’re a World team member, you don’t want to play for USA
The guys are competing at like 50% of regular season energy. Which is honestly all you can ask for.
Now the real issue is, it’s happening at 3pm in California and not a soul in that arena gives a crap. Bring this game to a real sports city and cut the cost of tickets and people will go nuts. Guarantee
I genuinely thought everything was starting at 8pm EST like normal but starting earlier was kinda wild to see. Makes sense if you factor global audience I guess
It’s the Olympics. Nothing to do with the global audience.
The fact that this was on broadcast television AND started at a sensible time for me on the east coast meant that this was the first All-Star Game that I’ve watched in years.
Around 8:30 last night I looked for the dunk contest and shit. Couldn’t find it. Looked on my phone and saw it all happened at 5 lmao
A real sports city?! The issue is tickets are $1k for nosebleeds. Los Angeles would love to be there.
I’m trying to suggest a city where the ASW is the biggest thing happening that weekend. In LA or SOCAL it’s just another big event and people are used to it.
Go to a city like Indy, Chicago, Milwaukee or Washington to name a few and people will want to go since it’s a huge draw.
They won’t be interested either if nosebleeds are $1k
It was in Indy last year
take it to a smaller city and the players won’t care about going. they all bitched like crazy when it was in cleveland. damned if you do, damned if you don’t
It’s not about the city, it’s about the price. They priced out the real fans.
LA aint the problem bro. Its paying almost $500 for nosebleeds thats the issue
I don’t know who is upvoting this. This is a dumbass take. The city isn’t the problem and asking players to put in 50% for a game that you sell tickets to is bullshit.
I’d add Jaylen Brown to the people adding intensity
Hell yeah
I think most of the guys tried hard. I guess its hard not to when everyone is running around and trying, because then you look like the weirdo for not trying. But when no one is trying, then the one guy trying is usually the guy people mock
And Scottie!
they kept talking about how they were actually trying and tbf in the first game you could tell that wemby and ant wanted it…but when i saw jaylen brown throw it down hard i knew it was on fr
He played some great ball and enough bad for us to know he was having fun. Made me a fan.
i’m so glad they got rid of Kevin Hart narrating mid game. that was horrible.
definitely an improvement from the last few
Omg i forgot how terrible that was
Edit: typo
that was unwatchable
They also stopped mid-game to circlejerk the TNT guys “final” season for what felt like 15+ minutes. Didn’t let the players get into a rhythm at all. Kevin Hart, Ant shooting lefty, Lebron not even suiting up. I dunno if it could get worse than last year.
Oh yeh I forgot about those long breaks between games. That was truly awful.
Anthony mf Edwards lol
Ant should get All Star MVP just for being Ant.
The post game commentary is the best “he like 8 feet tall”
Love him.
Spoke too soon. That last game was trash. First 3 were great tho
It was trash because of the format. Stripes had 3 straight games yet Stars had one game rest before the final.
But the games were only 12 min, it’s basically a quarter. All the players are used to playing more than 3 quarters anyway and they still had breaks between each mini-game/quarter
Nah, it failed because the young team started with a big lead and nobody wanted to play hard enough to come back.
They just need a performer between 3rd and 4th game
Eh it wasn’t due to lack of effort. One team was just cold. That happens in basketball all the time.
Both teams still tried, rebounded, went to save balls, passed, played defense. One was just cold. I enjoyed the youngins beating up the uncles lol
True.
Oldest team had three back to back games. Should have been the younger squad
Im honestly shocked. It’s amazing. It’s been so fun to watch. They figured it out. Wow
It’s like night and day. So fun.
Wemby happened. He was the main reason.
They always play hard the first time something changes, it’s about does it last
They made a first time change last year and it sucked
hard for the players to stay encaged with the games last year with all that Kevin Hart crap
With the latest gambling scandal, my brain went other places…
I thought 2020 was pretty solid, but they went away from that format.
These short games are a good idea. More crunch time moments and reasons for guys to play hard.
The USA/World teams thing is pretty clunky, though. I’d rather they just go to 2 East and West teams each having 6 guys. Maybe add a Rising Star to each team to give in case of injury or whatever. Like when they added Laettner to the 92 Olympic team
I think the USA/World thing was to piggyback on the current discourse of US hegemony in basketball weakening. I could definitely see them bringing back East vs West.
That’s a good point. It’s not the worst idea, it’s just weird rooting against the World team because they’re not American. It’s especially difficult with the Olympics happening right now.
They could also just do the 3 team format again with captains that draft the teams. I like East/West, though
Kawhi had 31 points in 12 minutes battling but somehow Wemby and Ant fixed it alone?? Lol idk format was a huge player imo
Now remove the dunk comp, replace with a 1v1 contest
No one will risk their aura on that
Wemby set the tone but the effort thing isn’t only because 1 player tries. We’ve seen all star games where a handful of guys try, but to make this good you need everyone or almost everyone on board.
Adam Solver, I was unfamiliar with your game
Adam Situational Awareness
This has been a lot of fun.
100%
Well most of the players. Luka and Jokic still didn’t give a shit.
Kawhi mf Leonard dude
He’s that guy.
Yeah I’m really enjoying the all star game this year
r/agedlikemilk
3⁄4 ain’t bad but yeah…
Seeing the ogs like Lebron and Steph snickering at Wemby taking things so seriously really exposed that those guys have lived long enough to become the villain. They are just so smug. I am happy for Kawhi though, what a performance.
Wait when did they snicker?
They*
*Wemby
This is exactly what everyone said after the 2020 all star game, then it was terrible again. I’d wait before jumping to conclusions
I completely read this like gambling fixing, which is actually more believable
i think wemby jamming on someone 10 seconds into the game made everyone play hard so they wouldn’t get posterized 🔥
I’ve said it before and I’ll said it again. MLB had it right for the longest time.
You want the all-star game to mean something /players to show effort? Put home court advantage of the nba finals on the line. Boom problem solved - watch them haul ass.
Wemby fixed the All Star Game
Up until the final when the OGs said nah im not trying anymore
Kind of, The last game was ass.
I would make this one game, 4 quarters of 10 minutes and World vs US.
Went to turn this shit on and its over already wtf
They = ❌️
Wemby = ✅️
Ending was awful lmao but it was fun for about 20 minutes
Ant talking about Wemby is the face of the league. Wemby went out sis exactly what he said he would do. He set the tone and Ant followed. I feel Ant and Wemby could both represent the league well. Last game I understand some of the guys just played, but the intensity was way down. It was still there but way down
It’s always fixed welcome to life
‘They came up with a way’
In other words, Wemby came out hard and the USA players were like hang on a minute that’s not cool, let’s get him!
This has been a great time honestly. I’m so glad it was fun to watch.
Game’s back.
Well watching the final game I’m not so sure…
This was a good All stars game since 2020 it was very competitive until the last the game
this cant be serious, game is a travesty.
the 3rd quarter was nuts
okay NBA burner account
Huh? That last game was completely ass.
The young gunners are setting the tone. The next generation is in good hands with Wemby and Cade
Starting at 2 is pretty stupid though
It was a lot better but I wouldn’t jump the gun and say it’s fixed. It’s not the 1st time they introduced a new format and the 1st year of that was good.
Players and league staff should get credit. And then the players again. Not Adam Silver.
The new format isn’t really fair for the team that just played before. They need to figure out how to either do a 4th team or somehow get enough world players for a full team.
I was thinking this exactly. Team stripes basically played 3 nonstop quarters, whereas Stars basically played one, watched one, and somehow were crowned champions after the win in the 4th even though the series was tied 2-1.
What? It isn’t fixed. It should be double elimination.
Play one more game!
The format still doesn’t make sense. They literally have 2 American teams and 1 non American team
So the strategy is win one, lose the second and then win the 3rd.
How you gonna crown a winner on a tied series? One team played 3 straight 12s whereas the other got a break in between.
The stars vs world team was legitimately some of the best hoops I’ve watched in years. As much as Adolf Silver has done, this was good.
Pure ass cheeks. Not sure what you were watching. The championship game should be the best event and it was clearly the worst. Can’t wait for half of these bums to rest next week when games start up again because they gave 30% effort for 10 minutes.
Format dos matter contrary to many comments.
Having locals vs yokels not so much, but making each “quarter” count keep rotations tight
Wemby fixed the game. He came to play and the rest needed to show up or look like a fool.
Relax lol
We basically ended up with the same product at the end 😂, except for the team captains. It was definitely fun to watch though!
The Kevin Durant Leak Files…
What’s different this year?
We have three all NBA teams yet we never thought once to create three All-Star teams. We are slow, but we did it. Of course, this makes sense. There are so many players that need touches, dividing them up into three teams gives a playground style pick up energy. Good job by us
Loved it! They need to stretch it out over 3 days to add more sustained excitement and allow rest. Shorten the celebrity game to 20 minutes. If they really want to go global, a second world team chosen by committee - Wagner, Markkanen, Brooks, Vucevic, Giddey, Gobert, OG, Porzingis all should be involved.
Day 1: Celebrity Game, Shooting Stars
Day 2: Stripes vs. World 1, Dunk Contest, Stars vs. World 2
Day 3: “Bronze Medal” game, 3-Pt contest, Final All-Star Game for first and second place.
No, it just takes putting players in it that are naturally competitive and want to stunt on some hoes. If you see an “all-star” not competing, don’t bring their asd back. I don’t care what stardom they have or what fans want. If you got a player that doesn’t care, why taint the product? If they cared that they were shunned out, maybe they will try harder next season.
Ant and Wemby saved it. They are just two guys that wanted to stunt on hoes.