basketball
In tournament mode up to 40: NBA reforms All-Star Game
Updated 12/17/2024 – 9:23 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
An exhibition game without defense and often without tension: The All-Star Game in the best basketball league in the world has lost its format in recent years. That should now change.
The best basketball league in the world has abolished the All-Star Game in its current form and replaced it with a mini-tournament with four teams. This is announced by the North American professional league NBA. At the upcoming All-Star Weekend in San Francisco there will not be just one party, but three.
The two semi-finals on February 16, 2025 were followed by the final with the two winners on the same evening. The winner of each party is the team that initially scores 40 points. The NBA is testing a new format and is resisting the gradual devaluation of the event, which in recent years has seen more exhibition games without defense than ever before.
Until 2017, the game was always played in the East versus West format. This format was replaced by two team captains. Last year the East versus West duel returned and ended with a 211:86 for the East.
In the new format, the 24 All-Stars will continue to be chosen as before. However, these are no longer distributed across two teams with twelve players, but rather across three teams with eight professionals. The fourth team consists of promising talents.
Fans (50 percent of the votes), current NBA players (25 percent) and a committee of media representatives (25 percent) decide who is among the first ten nominees. The reserves are selected by the NBA's head coaches.
Voting for the All-Star Game begins on December 19th. The German world champion Franz Wagner is considered a contender for the first nomination despite his usual injury.
