The defense wasn’t better in the past, this version of the game just doesn’t translate as well.
The NBA All-Star Game has always been an exaggerated reflection of the league.
The stereotypes, both good and bad, are amplified for one night. On Sunday, that produced a boring uncompetitive 211-186 game.
Basketball has always been in a constant state of evolution. This is especially true compared to the other two major North American professional sports. The game from forty years ago is completely foreign to today’s in a way that baseball and to a lesser extent football is not. Even NBA games from ten years ago are vastly different. Its constant evolution is one of the sport’s defining and maybe most interesting characteristics.
The one thing that hasn’t changed in that time is the lack of defensive effort in All-Star Games. The issue is that this iteration of the game translates poorly to an extremely caffeinated version.
Thirty years ago the average points per team in a game was 101.5 and the pace was 95.1. The game was slow, played in the half court, and dominated by post players.
When you juiced up that version of the game and played exhibition-level defense, you got a flashy product that was a much-needed change of pace from the typical grind. Since everyone just stood in the paint anyway, effortlessly putting your hands up provided enough resistance to make the game fun.
That was even more true 20 years ago. The All-Star Game was a much-needed breath of fresh air. The elimination of illegal zone defenses made it impossible for anyone to score. The average points per game were 93.4 with 90.1 possessions per contest.
The typical game was a slog, so seeing guys run around and dunk was leaps and bounds more exciting than what you’d otherwise get. It was truly a highlight to see the incredible plays stars could make when given the room to do so.
Even in 2014, the last year of LeBron James’s stint with the Miami Heat, the game more resembled what it did in the mid-2000s than it does today. The average points per game were 101 and the pace was 93.9. The average three-point attempts per game (21.5) was closer to what we saw in 2004 (14.9) than what we’ve seen this season (35).
A game with no defense still meant a lot of cool dunks from guys who were not willing to participate in the Dunk Contest was still entertaining. That All-Star Game had 30 combined made threes. By comparison, Sunday’s game had 67 on 168 attempts.
Close finishes are what make or break an All-Star Game. Teams try in the last five or so minutes which provides an incredible product. The issue with the drastic rise in three-pointers in the overall game that was reflected in Sunday’s version is that it’s increasingly rare to see a close game with the variance the outside shot provides.
The Eastern Conference went 42-97 (43.3%) from three while the West went 25-71 (35.2%) in Indianapolis. You simply aren’t going to get many close games when one team is able to generate 51 more points from the outside shot than the other. It also isn’t very entertaining along the way as aside from a few outrageously deep threes, hitting mostly open outside jumpers isn’t exactly thrilling on repeat.
There’s been entertaining All-Star exhibitions in the three-point era (‘18, ‘20, ‘22), but the game needed to be tight at the end to make that possible. Those will remain an outlier as long as the three-point shot is emphasized so munch.
The NBA has evolved into a more entertaining product on a night-to-night basis. Some improvements could be made by allowing defensive teams more leeway in certain situations. However, the offensive optimization combined with the defensive game plan and execution needed to stop teams, has never been better.
Adam Silver said before Sunday’s game that he wants the exhibition to be a return to basketball. But the All-Star Game has never been the best players being locked in for 48 minutes. This generation doesn’t care any less than their predecessors did. Their game just adapts more poorly to this format than any other.
There are levers that Silver can try to pull to make the game more competitive. The G League’s Up Next Game was not competitive in 2023 playing under typical game rules. This year, however, it was one of the highlights of the weekend if you were paying attention. They split into four teams like the Rising Stars Challenge, however, they played three games to 30 instead of the Rising Stars Challenge format of two games to 50 and then one to 25.
Playing to 30 is a quick game. Each ranged from 20-30 minutes in actual time including timeouts. But how quickly a team could get to 30 meant that everyone was locked in the entire time they were on the court. Something that playing to 50 doesn’t lend itself to doing.
This is a route that I would pursue if I was Silver, but, this change would present other issues as well such as the game not being as conducive for advertisers, halftime shows, etc.
The All-Star Game was bad on Sunday, but it’s more to do with this evolution of the game translating poorly to this exaggerated format than guys not caring like they used to. They never cared about this exhibition and likely never will. That hasn’t prevented good games in the past and won’t prevent them in the future. Just this version of basketball requires more oversight to manufacture an entertaining finish.
