What Once Was the NBA All-Star Game
By Jeff Feyerer
No, your eyes didn’t deceive you Sunday night. The 2016 All-Star Game wasn’t competitive or entertaining.
What once was a display of quality basketball played by the NBA’s brightest stars has devolved into a uncontested dunking and three-point chucking contest barely resembling what fans see on the court during the regular season.
Sure, it’s time for these guys away from the 82-game grind of the regular season and expecting them to give maximum effort in a seemingly meaningless exhibition is wildly unrealistic. But anything better than what we saw the other night in the West’s scoreboard-breaking 196-173 romp over the East would be preferred.
In an All-Star Game, there are some things we have to expect. The high level of shot-making ability of the players participating in the game means there will generally be more points than usual. Couple that with the low level of importance placed on the game and there will likely be less aggressive play and more lax defense which leads to less fouling and fewer free throw attempts.
But some of these stylistic changes have become more pronounced in recent years. There has always been an air of “ole” defense played in the All-Star Game, but the total indifference on the defensive end leading to uncontested drives to the hoop, even in the halfcourt, has been appalling. Physical play is non-existent and the refs might as well not even bring a whistle.
And as the league has moved more toward the 3-point shot, we would expect players to let it fly from beyond the act. But catching a pass at 14 feet away from the basket and then backing up unimpeded to the three-point line is now commonplace. To bring light to the growing problem that is the style of play in the All-Star Game, I looked at the free throw attempt rate and the three point attempt rate for each team during the past 30 years (29 games) relative to the league average during the corresponding season and charted the difference.
Based on the above data, it’s clear that what happened during the 2016 game hasn’t always been the case. With regard to free throw attempt rate, 27 of the 29 games have seen a rate below league average, but in most of those cases, the difference has been less than 20%. That has changed dramatically and the rate has now decreased for the sixth consecutive year. Since 1987, the league free throw rate has dropped from 34.3% to 27.7% this season, but the All-Star game rate has seen a staggering drop from 39.1% to 2.4% in 2016. The game has come a long way since Rolando Blackman knocked down two of his 11 made free throw attempts to send the 1987 game to overtime. He had more made free throws in that game than the number of attempts from the line in the entire 2016 contest.
As teams have realized the importance of the three-point shot, the league three-point attempt rate has continued to grow over time from 5.3% in 1987 to 28.2% in 2016. But the growth in All-Star Game three-point rate has been even more pronounced. More than 50% of field goal attempts in the 2016 All-Star Game came from beyond the arc representing a 22.5% difference over the regular season. 23 of the 24 players that saw action in Sunday’s game hoisted at least one trey, with at least 18 throwing up two attempts. Thank you Anthony Davis for not chucking one up and settling for your 12 for 13 from the field in 15 minutes of play.
The NBA used to hang their hat on the fact it was the All-Star game that most closely resembled an actual regular season game (save each loaded roster) relative to the other three major sports. But until the players put forth a more effort on the defensive end and if current trends continue, the NBA All-Star Game could end being as irrelevant as the NFL Pro Bowl. And trust me, no one wants that.