Adam Silver waves the white flag on trying to fix the broken NBA All-Star Game

The days of the best-of-the-best playing with and against each other in a high-powered All-Star game are officially over.

For years, the NBA All-Star Game was the highlight of most NBA seasons, where disputes and rivalries would be settled on the court. Within the past few years, the All-Star Game has been a complete joke due to poor effort on the defensive side of the ball. This may not be a huge concern when it comes to profits and viewership, but it will eventually hurt the bottom line as the game has become boring, jaded and an overall publicity show for the NBA at stars.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has done a great job maintaining excitement in the NBA from the start of the regular season to the NBA Finals and in the offseason. But the All-Star game has become a joke.

Adam Silver waves white flag on trying to fix broken NBA All-Star Game

Silver appeared on NBA Countdown during the NBA Finals and admitted the All-Star Game needs to be rethought.

"My concern about U.S. vs. International is that we may be just past the point where guys and teams are incentivized to play a competitive All-Star game in the middle of the season," Silver said in part. "It's the nature of the league."

It isn’t surprising to see the stars of Hollywood, music and business come out and show their support for the NBA. Within the past couple of years, the NBA All-Star Game has become a celebrity event, even for the players themselves. It is a shame that the Celebrity All-Star Game is more entertaining to watch as a whole than the actual All-Star Game itself. In the last celebrity game, Dallas Cowboys outside linebacker Micah Parsons scored 37 while Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud scored 31 points.

In the last All-Star Game, the matchup was completely free from defensive presence. It was the most points scored in an All-Star Game as the Eastern Conference outscored the Western Conference 211-186. Saying the Eastern Conference won the game would mean that there would’ve been effort present. There were 168 three-point shot attempts and only three total blocks. There was no life to this game and that is why several media outlets slammed the game and the star’s efforts.

Adam Silver has tried a lot of different things to make the NBA All-Star game relevant again. One suggestion would be to make the home-field advantage in the postseason decided by the winning conference of the All-Star game, like the MLB does.

In the end, the NBA All-Star game has become a publicity show and a display of low-effort scoring, all at the expense of the fans’ enjoyment. It would not be unwise for Silver to completely dissolve the All-Star game and pivot the way the Pro Bowl in the NFL has become a flag football competition.

"I think about for example the Steph vs. Sabrina shootout last year which was a highlight of All-Star weekend," Silver said. "And so my reaction is that maybe we need to play basketball but we have to do something that's a little bit different frankly, that this is about entertainment. That people want to see the players put their best foot forward, but it has to be something more than just a game."

The stink of the NBA All-Star game is reaching the other major platforms of All-Star weekends such as the NBA dunk contest. We used to see incredible matchups such as Zach Levine and Aaron Gordon having a yearly battle. Now the players are saving their bodies for the regular season, leaving players from the G league to essentially compete and win the competition. For the dunk contest to be saved, the cancerous NBA All-Star Game might need to be cut.