After another dud of an All-Star Game, the NBA is again considering a new format to be implemented for this season’s exhibition in San Francisco.
“We’re looking at different formats for this year’s All-Star Game,” league commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday, ahead of the NBA’s Global Games series in Mexico City between the Miami Heat and Washington Wizards.
Though Silver did not outline what the changes might be, he said the league’s chief executives were actively churning through ideas to find a solution so the players would be more engaged and a better product would be offered for the All-Star Game.
The format change consideration comes after a record number of points was scored in last season’s All-Star Game because the star players didn’t give any effort. Last year, the NBA switched back to a traditional 48-minute game with rosters of 12 players divided by conference (East and West) after years of top vote-getters drafting teams out of a pool of All-Stars and playing with an alternative scoring format.
“I think, even if we could turn the clock back and get a bit more of a competitive game, even if it was more of a standard NBA game, I think fans would want more,” Silver said.
Silver said he has consulted Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, likely the de facto host for this season’s February All-Star weekend, about making changes. He also said Curry and Sabrina Ionescu, a Bay Area native who put on a thrilling shooting competition against Curry on All-Star Saturday night last February in Indianapolis, would be doing so again in San Francisco.
Even if they hadn’t formally announced it yet.
“They know they’re doing it,” Silver said.