USA Stars winning the 2026 All-Star Game<\/a> 47-21 over USA Stripes. Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards was named the Kobe Bryant All-Star Game MVP.<\/p>\nBut how did the new format play out? Did it make the game more watchable? Heighten the level of competition for an event that has been long accused of being a bit too casual?<\/p>\n
The Athletic\u2019s NBA writers who attended All-Star Weekend in southern California weighed in, grading the new format and telling us what they thought of the league\u2019s latest innovation.<\/p>\n
David Aldridge<\/p>\n
Grade: A solid B+. Let\u2019s not go nuts, but it\u2019s a marked improvement over the last several iterations. Best ASG since the one in Chicago in 2020, which was just weeks after Kobe Bryant\u2019s death. The late, lamented Elam Ending played that night. Again, I think Victor Wembanyama\u2019s presence means the team he\u2019s on is going to bring the juice. So, not that he won\u2019t earn it, but he needs to be on All-Star courts from now until about 2042.<\/p>\n
Sam Amick<\/p>\n
Grade: A+. For the simple fact that it was fun and competitive. That\u2019s all we\u2019ve been asking for, and the ability to pull that means this is mission accomplished. Does it mean it will work every time? Sadly, no. We saw the Elam ending make a major difference back in the 2020 All-Star game, but that didn\u2019t last. And really, it\u2019s fair to wonder how much of what happened was the format vs. the Wemby factor. He was the one-man disrupter in it all, even if he fell short at the end. That last game was anticlimactic in terms of the competitiveness, but I\u2019m sticking with the well-earned marks here.<\/p>\n
Mirin Fader<\/p>\n
Grade: A-. That was awesome. I don\u2019t know how to say it any more elegantly. They played hard, and they really cared! Let\u2019s give credit where credit is due.<\/p>\n
Zach Harper<\/p>\n
Grade: A-. It\u2019s worked through the first attempt enough that it feels like the players care a lot more. We probably had more blocked shots in the first 12 minutes than we\u2019ve had in the last five years. However, I\u2019ll remind everybody the Elam Ending debut was a great game. It felt like the game was corrected then. It soon became an abomination. However, this is very encouraging, and I have lots of hope.<\/p>\n
John Hollinger<\/p>\n
Grade: A big, fat A+. The players cared! They really played! Victor Wembanyama being genuinely upset his team lost the first game had to bring tears to Adam Silver\u2019s eyes. After years of begging players to please just try a little, the new format was magic.<\/p>\n
Jason Jones<\/p>\n
Grade: A! There was competition, game winners and clutch moments. Much better than last year\u2019s version. It was entertaining and that\u2019s all we need, no matter the format.<\/p>\n
Law Murray<\/p>\n
Grade: B+. I\u2019m going to leave room for improvement, but this was really good. The All-Star Game works about one every five years. This is one that certainly worked. And I\u2019m glad they didn\u2019t Elam Ending this (except for overtime, which I\u2019m fine with). We\u2019re used to four quarters. This is a four quarter game, just with four games of one quarter each. It really works without cheapening the fact that this is a basketball game. My one fix: the old heads wound up playing three straight games\/quarters. Put all of the \u201centertainment\u201d breaks after the third game. That would give players rest before the championship and gives everyone a chance to do postgame interviews for the one team that isn\u2019t in it anyway.<\/p>\n
Shakeia Taylor<\/p>\n
Grade: A-. Wemby got everybody wanting to compete, and the games delivered from there. Players looked to be having fun, there was sweating and defense, and fans in the area were actively into it. I don\u2019t know how sustainable the format is and how long it will take for it to get stale like previous ones, hence my reluctance in giving it an A-plus for the time being it appears to be a correction for what was missing. It certainly made up for the flatness of Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Joe Vardon<\/p>\n
Grade: B. Look, I was so excited about what I saw for three games, or quarters, or whatever, that I was punching David Aldridge in the arm. But the last game was so sloppy and lopsided. The ridiculous turnovers and lazy defense returned. I was let down. Crushed. Devastated. OK, no, but let\u2019s strive for a more perfect event next season so that the championship game is as compelling as the first three.<\/p>\n
Jared Weiss<\/p>\n
Grade: B+. This was a crucial step forward to bringing the magic back, but I\u2019d point more toward the clock and tournament formatting than the USA vs. World aspect itself. A few players came into the weekend saying they were going to compete harder this year, and the short games eliminated the lulls in a 48-minute game that allow for complacency to set in. It also just makes it so that players can still take plays off defensively without it permeating too long. The biggest issue with the All-Star games was that they were too long. Especially with the Elam Endings in overtime, there is just less time to waste in the new format.<\/p>\n
Dan Woike<\/p>\n
Grade: A. I was in the room Saturday when Anthony Edwards said nothing could be done to get him to play harder in the All-Star Game. He was hilarious, but for a league looking to its starts to breathe life into this event, I know some NBA people who were annoyed. But come Sunday, here was Edwards cutting to the basket, competing on defense and hitting huge shots, the energy tide even lifting up a non-believer like Edwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 The NBA has gone global, so why shouldn\u2019t its All-Star Game? This week, the league…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-483720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}