The NBA announced Wednesday that it will roll back recent changes to its All-Star Game format for the 2024 event in Indianapolis, shortly after a prominent league executive sharply criticized the 2023 showcase’s poor television ratings and lack of competitive spirit.
As part of the overhaul, the NBA will return to a traditional format pitting 12 players from the Eastern Conference against 12 players from the Western Conference. While the league will still name team captains from each conference based on the results of fan voting, it will no longer have the captains draft their rosters.
The NBA today announced changes to the format for the 2024 NBA All-Star Game, which will be played on Sunday, Feb. 18 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, home of the Indiana Pacers. pic.twitter.com/nhb3A51fC2
— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) October 25, 2023From 2018 to 2023, the NBA had team captains draft players from the pool of all-stars in two separate rounds to divvy up the 10 starters and 14 reserves. LeBron James served as a captain for all six years, compiling a 5-1 record against Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant.
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Additionally, the All-Star Game will return to a standard four-quarter, 48-minute game rather than using the Elam Ending, which includes a “target score” in the fourth quarter that ensures every contest ends on a game-winning shot.
The NBA adopted the Elam Ending, which uses an untimed fourth quarter, in 2020, with the goal of creating a more tense late-game atmosphere. The tweak was hailed as a success in its first year as Team LeBron beat Team Giannis in a 157-155 nail-biter, and James memorably hit a walk-off shot in the 2022 edition. However, the scoring format was confusing to some viewers and didn’t prevent blowouts in 2021 and 2023.
Joe Dumars, a Hall of Fame guard for the Detroit Pistons who now is the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations, said this month that the league wanted to rejuvenate its All-Star Game as part of a wide-ranging effort to improve the quality of the regular season. The NBA also has introduced a new in-season tournament and enacted new penalties to discourage load management and flopping.
“Slowly, over time, you see all this slippage in missing games in the regular season and the All-Star Game devolving into what it did this year,” Dumars said. “None of that happened in one year. At some point, you have to stop the slide.”
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James and Antetokounmpo, the team captains for the 2023 event, were barely on the court because of minor injuries, and their teammates played on cruise control. Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum scored a record 55 points, but sleepy fans headed for the exits before the final buzzer, bored television viewers tuned out, and Denver Nuggets Coach Michael Malone called it “the worst basketball game ever played.”
“I think [2023] was the lowest [television] rating we had in the last 10 years,” Dumars said. “It didn’t make the product look good. You’re never in the business of putting your product out there, knowing it’s going to look bad and accepting that.”
Despite the format changes, the NBA’s all-star voting process will continue to incorporate fan, media and player votes for the 10 starters, and the 14 reserves will still be determined by a coaches’ vote.
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NBA Commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged in an interview last week that the “spectacle” of the league’s sprawling All-Star Weekend has started to overshadow the centerpiece event on Sunday.
“I don’t know how it works in other sports, but we have dozens and dozens of players in the league who choose to come to All-Star Weekend for the activities [and] for various events who aren’t even all-stars,” Silver told ESPN. “I think we’ve lost sight a bit that it’s about the game at the end of the day.”
The 2024 All-Star Game will be held at Indianapolis’s Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Feb. 18. Indianapolis is hosting All-Star Weekend for the first time since 1985.
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