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The NBA All-Star game was an absolute joke.
Again.
This is not big news. In fact, it’s not news at all. No one expects anything different anymore…even those who pay really big bucks to watch a “game.”
211-186? Give us a break.
Yes, there was a time that players like Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan actually took the game seriously. They played hard and played to win. Those days are long gone. East beating West doesn’t carry any cache anymore, and no amount of prize money will change that.
You understand from the player’s perspective why they might not want to go all out and play hard in a meaningless exhibition. After all, the world “break” is included in the scheduling. Those chosen to play don’t get much of a break at all.
But the league still sells tickets and markets it as an actual games. It should be more than a glorified shooting display.
To be fair, the NBA doesn’t have a monopoly on crummy All-Star games. The NFL and the NHL All-Star games really suck, too. Only MLB still puts on a representative contest, and even that could use a big time upgrade.
The problem is motivation.
They players don’t give much of a rip.
Since money can’t supply an incentive anymore, there needs to be something else. Ask yourself, what makes the Olympic Games so great? It’s not money…it’s national pride. Playing for your country, be it the Olympics, or the World Baseball Classic, the Ryder Cup or any other form or “World Championship,” athletes tend to ball out when they’re wearing the colors of their homeland.
Since all these sports are now global in reach, making American professional All-Star games into international competitions would turn them from drab events to dazzling ones.
So what would be the best format to switch to?
Look at Golf’s Ryder Cup. This is the best approach. It pits the USA players vs a team made up of all the European countries. For a single event (instead of a tournament like the World Baseball Classic) this makes the most sense.
Why not turn the NBA All-Star game into a contest featuring North America v Europe? West v East, only in a far more meaningful way.
This year’s game could have featured a Euro team with guys like Nikola Jokic, Luca Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo vs a North American team of LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and their red, white and blue friends.
If you’ve ever watched the Ryder Cup, you understand what this sort of competition can be like. National pride beats prize money any day of the week.
Given the lack of quality football players from other parts of the world, the NFL would not be able to do this (at least not yet.) But the NHL certainly could (in fact they’ve tried something similar in past years) and even MLB could give it a go. Before baseball adopted interleague play, there was a sort of league pride when the AL faced off with the NL. But now that everything from the schedule to the umpires has merged together, it’s no longer a big deal for one league to top the other in an exhibition game. There is nothing much on the line.
So why not give the players and the fans something better?
Why not have Team USA take on the rest of the world?
The fervor surrounding the WBC is intense, and that happens before most of the players are even in game shape. Imagine a mid-Summer Classic featuring and International team vs an American team? Shohei Ohtani v Mike Trout was epic in the WBC final last spring. Give us some more of that.
There was a time when fear of injury didn’t make the decisions about how All-Star games were played. Put national pride on the line, and that fear would end up in last place.
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