Naturally, when 24 of the best basketball players in the world share a court, one would think that we would see exploits of said best basketball players - supreme skills on one end met by surpreme defense, games within the game, matchups within the matchup.
The NBA All-Star Game has had issues with not seeing such exploits in recent years, with the latest example being last night's 211-186 final score in favor of the Eastern Conference. Yes, there were skills on display, like Damian Lillard hitting threes from half court, Karl-Anthony Towns showing off some dunk contest-worthy dunks, things uber impressive for a man his size. Tyrese Haliburton, representing the host city Pacers, connected on 10-of-14 attempts from beyond the arc, hitting a variety of pull-ups and off balance triples. Some things, like Haliburton and Lillard's connections from three-point land, and Towns' dunks, are simply a skill display - things that you would want to see in an exhibition where the game's best get together, things that you would not (in the case of Towns' dunking) often, if ever, see in a regular season game.
The issue with the game is not the talent. The issue is the effort. There is an understanding that players do not want to risk injury in a game that does not impact their respective team's standings or who emerges as the NBA champion at the end of June. That makes sense. No one wants to see a player go down with a serious injury in a game that does not count towards the standings. Then again, though, injury is a risk you take anytime you step on the floor, be it at All-Star Weekend, regular season, preseason, and off-season pick up games.
However, the issue with effort has been there for some time now, save for a couple instances. The 2020 game in Chicago (157-155) came down to the wire with the Elam Ending in place, and 2018 saw a three-point margin (148-145). 2016 in Toronto, two years before the league changed the format to an all-star draft, both sides set records for points in an all-star game, with the West (196) defeating the East (173). That was really when conversations first started about where the competitiveness was going. The following year, 192-182, did not change things.
Nothing, though, compared to last night. 97 three-point attempts from the East, 71 from the West. Open lanes to the basket with little, if any, resistance. Granted, the understanding that this is an exhibition warrants some highlight plays (think Tracy McGrady throwing the ball off the backboard to himself in the 2004 All-Star Game, of the few instances when Shaquille O'Neal would try and go one on one from the perimeter), but those were instances within a game that was otherwise competitive, those instances the exception, not the rule.
Somewhere along the line, the player's thinking shifted from let's compete and let's play serious to a more lackadaisical, carefree attitude where a light jog provided the pace, fouls were non-existent (there were five attempts all game last night between both sides), and the top players, for the most part, did not matchup with one another.
How to remedy a game that has lost its competitive juice so steadily over the years to where now it seems like there are none remaining, is not an easy fix. The player draft and Elam Ending (providing a target score that each side needed to reach in order to win) were thought to bring something back, a renewed interest and a more competitive atmosphere. On only a few occasions, though, did that work. Now, with the draft gone and the format back to normal, it is honestly up to the players to make the game more competitive. Monetary incentives and home court advantage are ideas that have been thrown around by people on social media. What is boils down to, though, is that at the core of sports is competition, that when the best of the best converge on one stage, that the idea is to have the best pick-up game in the world with the best players competing against one another - my best move against your best defense, my jump shot against your contest. That is not what we have gotten in a while though, and it all seemed to come to a head on Sunday night. It wasn't a competition, but the antithesis of one. All of the incentives or situational differences, like the target score, only helped so much, and for so long. The onus, at the end of the day, is on the players to make it competitive.
A lot of people would say that All-Star Weekend has lost its luster, but there were some aspects that were and still are great. It was awesome seeing the G-League players defeat a collection of young NBA talent in the Rising Stars, it was awesome seeing Damian Lillard get hot and win the three-point contest, and Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu delivered in an extraordinary display of three-point shooting in their head-to-head contest.
It might just be so that the All-Star Game on Sunday night that caps a fun-filled weekend where some of the best athletes in the world converge on one city and collide with some of the best in entertainers in the world, is no longer the main attraction of All-Star Weekend. Maybe it will return to being that, or maybe it won't. At the end of the day, if the players' mindset towards the game remains unchanged, we will still get the same results.
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