The NBA All-Star Game is still a couple of months away, but we’re already starting to get a sense of how players feel about its new format, including Phoenix Suns forward Kevin Durant, a 14-time All-Star.
If you haven’t heard, this season’s All-Star Game, set for February 16 at the Chase Center in San Francisco, home of the Golden State Warriors, will feature a significantly different structure.
Confusing, careless, and pointless: The NBA All-Star Game in a nutshell
How different, you may ask. They can’t get too crazy with it, right? I mean, how much can you change a game? Well, for starters, how about making it multiple games. Yep. That’s what they’re doing.
How is the All-Star Game changing this time? Here’s a breakdown of the new format:
Semifinal Matches:
The All-Star Game will feature two semifinal matches, each played to a target score of 40 points.
Final Showdown:
The winners of the semifinal games will advance to a final matchup, which will be played up to 25 points.
Team Composition:
Official details about how the teams will be formed have not been confirmed. It’s expected that three of the teams will consist of eight players each. The fourth team is anticipated to be the winner of the Rising Stars Game, adding a competitive twist to the format.
You get all of that?
When asked by PHNX’s Gerald Bourguet about the updated format, Durant was as lost as we are. “Is it four different teams?”
Upon hearing the intricacies of the event, Durant responded accordingly.
“I hate it,” he said. “I absolutely hate it. Terrible. The All-Star Game format’s changing, all the formats…terrible in my opinion. We should just go back to East/West. Just play a game. I think we been tryin’ to bring that flare back somehow with the All-Star Weekend but I think we just keep it traditional.”
KD and I might not see eye to eye on everything, but this is one he and I agree upon. It’s good to know that I am alone.
I’m starting to feel like the old guy complaining that the kids are hanging out too close to my lawn. It seems like just yesterday I was that kid, pushing the boundaries of what others said I could and could not do. Now? I just want things to make sense. And this just doesn’t make sense.
The NBA is out here desperately swinging for the fences, trying to spark engagement and reinvent the wheel, but I’ve always been a disciple of the K.I.S.S. approach: “Keep it simple, stupid.” There’s a certain beauty in simplicity. Clean, straightforward, no extra garnish.
That philosophy, however, seems to have evaporated somewhere in the NBA’s think tank, where the belief appears to be that convoluted equals captivating. Maybe the strategy is to confuse people into watching longer, like some bizarre psychological experiment. Hell, it works on me when I stumble across a cricket match. I stick around for the chaos just to try to figure out what the creeper is going on.
If Durant keeps playing at this elite level, there’s no doubt he’ll end up in San Francisco come February, front and center for the spectacle. Whether he’ll enjoy the weird, overcomplicated version of the All-Star Game is anyone’s guess, but I can’t imagine it’ll inspire much enthusiasm from the players themselves.
We’ll be covering it here at Bright Side, just like we cover everything Suns-related. But for the record: I don’t like it. Now get the hell off my lawn!
