Player egos could be what saves the NBA All-Star game, but don’t count on it
By Quinn Everts
NBA superstars have grown too cool for the All-Star Game.
There wasn't one specific year to which you can point and say "This is when the All-Star Game got bad." Instead, the once-fun game slowly grew stale throughout the 2010s and has completely tanked in watchability in the past few seasons. Maybe there wasn't a handshake agreement from players to give lackluster effort, but once a few guys saw a few other guys giving 5 percent effort instead of the 50-ish percent they gave years... we were cooked.
So I can't fault the league for trying something different this season. What it's trying, in essence, is coaxing All-Stars into effort by threatening them with something horrifying; the potential to be embarrassed.
There's a non-zero chance that one of the NBA All-Star teams — coached by Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal — plays a team of G League All-Stars on Sunday. If not the G Leaguers, than a team of young NBA players, who sure as hell aren't going to half-ass it for the sake of the superstars' public images.
What could possibly be more humbling than losing to a group of players led by Bryce McGowens and Dink Pate? No disrespect to either of them — it's cool they're getting this opportunity — but NBA superstars definitely have enough pride to give a real effort instead of letting a roster full of unknowns hang with them... right?
Simply put, I have no idea. If one thing can save the All-Star Game, it's the egos of NBA players who don't want to lose to guys they're objectively better players than.
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The Rising Stars are definitely going to try
No matter which team wins the Rising Stars Challenge (I'm rooting for Team M because of my king Toumani Camara, of course) I certainly think the young guys will give at least 70 percent effort; they're still trying to prove themselves to the general public.
Will that effort carry over to the NBA stars? I hope so — of course, a team of NBA All-Stars probably doesn't need to give 100 percent effort to beat a team of Rising Stars, but a team of Rising Stars giving 100 percent probably can beat a team of NBA All-Stars going 15 percent.
Still, I'm not particularly bullish on the format working. It's the beginning of a promising change to the format, but... I'm relatively confident that the NBA stars are going to dismantle the Rising Stars winner and then cease to care yet again when they're back to playing other NBA stars.