NBA All-Star Weekend Is Awful, Here Are 7 Ways to Fix It

As a young kid in the early 2000s, I marked my calendar every year come February and it wasn't for the Super Bowl. NBA All-Star Weekend was always the draw for me. I remember not having cable as a kid and having to go to my friend's place every year during All-Star Weekend to watch the events. I would catch every single event from the All-Star Celebrity Game pregame show to the All-Star Game postgame. I remember vividly watching Josh Smith putting a show in the dunk contest, Steve Nash kicking a pass off the glass to Amar'e on that same night, and Melo & LeBron giving out buckets in the Rookie-Sophomore game. Even the celebrity game has memorable moments like Kevin Hart throwing alley-oops to J. Cole. Creating nostalgic moments seem to be a thing of the past for All-Star Weekend. 

The Rising Stars competition is not even a full game anymore. The dunk contest doesn’t have the same excitement. The All-Star game itself has lost its sentiment and pride. You get more entertaining basketball in a Chris Brickley summer run than you do at the All-Star Game. Can All-Star Weekend be revived? Only time will tell but here are seven ways to fix it. 

Players go 1-on-1 at almost every practice. It’s the same concept but doing it in front of an audience and against the best in the world. Three dribbles max is the standard and can alleviate some of the injury worries a bit. A player can get injured playing hard in the All-Star Game in the last four minutes so are we really going to draw the line on something they do consistently anyway? This would instantly become the most exciting event on All-Star Saturday Night with the ultimate bragging rights going to the winner. We've seen all of the viral clips from USA basketball practice, it's time to put it on the big stage. 

The dunk contest winner should get two or three million dollars. Participation should have a minimal price as well. It’s the main event of the night. In boxing, the main event gets paid the most money, right? Both fighters will get their fair share of the stash so the same should apply to the dunk contest. Let the participants make $500K-$750K with the runner-up of the contest getting an extra million. If that won't convince the likes of Ja Morant and other stars, nothing will but it will likely attract guys like Shaedon Sharpe, Lonnie Walker, and Cam Whitmore or maybe bring back some old names. 

When in doubt, money talks. 

Let's be honest, the All-Star Game was a joke this year. There was minimal entertainment and players didn't show any effort. We couldn't even get the extension of the dunk contest that we usually get in the first half of games. It was straight layups and threes. Many fans turned off their TV after the first quarter. In today's era, there may be no way to save the All-Star Game. Players are too concerned with conserving energy and avoiding injury. Larry Bird begged these guys to play hard in his city and they didn't respond. 

So let's get very extreme. I'm not saying this should actually happen BUT if you really want to fix the game and give players incentive to play, it's time to adopt the old Major League Baseball way. Whichever conference that wins the game will earn homecourt advantage in the NBA Finals in June. Not only will get players playing hard, you will get the best players playing majority of the minutes especially ones who have a chance to play in June. It's extreme but it makes the game mean something.  

The nostalgia of LeBron, D. Wade, and Carmelo in the rookie-sophomore game in their own uniforms hits different. The bragging rights for each draft class would be put to the test. Even looking back at moments like Dion Waiters vs. Tim Hardaway Jr., the Rising Stars game was the best way to get people excited for the weekend. The World vs. USA was a better format than today’s current tournament landscape. Let’s stop forcing G-League players into All-Star Weekend. We get it commish, you're trying to promote the developmental league especially the G-League Ignite but there’s a G-League All-Star game and dunk contest for a reason. 

I understand the jerseys are all for marketing but there’s got to be a solution to letting players wear their own uniforms. I don’t know if it’s adding special patches or tweaking the uniforms in some way but we need to go back to players wearing their own uniforms. Although this year's threads were solid, the new All-Star uniforms have been whack historically to put it nicely. The game hits different when you're seeing players in their normal uniforms.

I understand Adam Silver is trying to spread the wealth and honor the history of the game but enough of the lifeless locations! No disrespect (even though it will come off as disrespect) to Utah, Indiana, and Cleveland but those are not locations people will willingly travel to for fun. This is another area the NFL is smoking the NBA in. They just had the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Their next locations are New Orleans, San Francisco, and back to Los Angeles. Let’s keep it to LA, NYC, Miami, Las Vegas, Houston, and some of the bigger markets built for the night life, attractions, and crowd control that All-Star Weekend requires. The NBA should not be in a city where the fans and media are saying there are no Ubers available. We're seeing less and less stars at these events because of the location. In the words of Draymond, "let's never have another All-Star in Indiana." 

It’s not impressive or fun to watch elite athletes like Micah Parsons, CJ Stroud, and Puka Nacua dominate the average joe celebrity who doesn’t train every day. Nobody is saying remove the NFL guys from the game but Micah Parsons took 31 shots during the game. The NBA was lucky the NFL celebrity game didn’t air on television because the NFL's roster blew the NBA’s out the water. Two former QBs played QB while the rest were viral, trending stars like Druski, 21 Savage, Offset, Funny Marco, and more. The NBA probably could've added viral names like Keith Lee, Drew Walls, more rappers or even Giancarlo Esposito, who's been training with Lethal Shooter. The all-time classic moments have come from celebs not current athletes. Kevin Hart throwing a lob to J. Cole for an oop or a young Justin Bieber playing like Steve Nash.