CLEVLEAND, Ohio — The NBA’s All-Star Weekend is like summer camp. It’s a temporary detour from the daily grind where the league’s finest gather to laugh, flex, experiment and occasionally remind us why they’re the ones sitting atop the basketball world.
This year was the NBA’s 75th installment of All-Star weekend, and it had all of that but it still felt different. It was loose yet competitive, unserious yet revealing, chaotic but undeniably memorable.
In between the jokes, the nostalgia, and the 180 combined dunks attempted on social media, there was an undercurrent of real basketball meaning humming underneath it all.
Part of that is because the NBA is in a strange but delightful transitional era. The legends of the past decade aren’t gone yet, but the kids aren’t waiting politely for their turn either.
The weekend became a fascinating snapshot: aging sharpshooters still capable of magic, superhumans in their early 20s already trying to bend the sport to their will and once-ignored events begging for reinvention.
And somehow, in the middle of it all, a burner‑account direct message leak from one of the greatest players alive helped make the whole thing even better.
**Damian Lillard pulled a Craig Hodges with a surgically repaired achilles**
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Damian Lillard rolled into All‑Star Weekend cold. As in ‘literally hasn’t checked into an NBA game this year’ cold. So when he put up 27 in the first round of the 3-point contest, 29 in the second round and walked out with the 3‑Point crown, with a little help from Devin Booker, it felt like a glitch in the simulation.
The only precedent is Craig Hodges doing it in 1993 while wearing the NBA logo jersey, and Dame channeling that kind of folklore gave the event a jolt it badly needed.
Ironically, that 1993 contest was Hodges’ third win in the competition. Saturday night was Lillard’s. The only other player with three 3-point contest victories to their name is Larry Bird.
While Hodges’ participation was mired in controversy, watching Lillard take the crown in the first time anyone has even seen him back in a Trailblazers jersey was nothing short of impressive.
**The dunk contest was bad, and that’s perfectly fine—just stop putting it in primetime**
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It’s been 10 years since one of the NBA’s most legendary dunk contests unfolded between Zach Lavine and Aaron Gordon. Not every dunk contest needs to be the 2016 showdown.
This one wasn’t.
The creativity was limited, the misses piled up and even the crowd seemed to run out of sympathy claps by the end.
And that’s okay!
There were some horrendous dunk contests in the years leading up to the epic LaVine-Gordon showdown and it improved over time.
But there’s no reason for it to be the centerpiece of Saturday night anymore.
Move it earlier. Give it room to fail gracefully. What it doesn’t need is a primetime pedestal it can’t live up to anymore. The NBA doesn’t need to cancel it. Just stop pretending it’s still the main event.
**The Skills Challenge deserves a comeback**
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NBA fans often refer to the modern NBA as the ‘most skilled era’ in the league’s history. So the fact that there was no skills challenge this year felt like a strange hole in Saturday night’s programming.
In a league overflowing with brilliant guards, jumbo-sized playmakers and bigs who move like guards, this should be the golden era for an event built to celebrate creativity, touch, and versatility.
Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley took home the skills challenge crown in 2025, but for many people the final memory of the event will be Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama getting disqualified.
One of my favorite skills challenge memories was 20 years ago when Dwayne Wade beat Paul, LeBron James and Steve Nash before going on to win the finals alongside Shaquille O’Neal that season.
Its quiet removal reminded us how much potential the competition actually has, especially with the dunk contest on the downswing.
With the modern NBA producing more all-around talent than ever, the skills challenge should be revived, reimagined, and given a chance to reflect just how skilled today’s players really are.
**Kawhi Leonard deserved the All-Star stage and Adam Silver was right to add him**
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Adam Silver didn’t need to justify adding Leonard.
Because he’s been in and out of the Clippers lineup in the last couple seasons with injuries people seem to have forgotten that he’s still basketball’s closest thing to a precision-engineered machine.
Aesthetically, his game looks like a combination between Michael Jordan and the Terminator, and leaving him off the roster for sentimentality or politics would’ve been a crime.
With Kevin Durant and LeBron James at his side it was Leonard who put on a show, finishing with 31 points in 12 minutes against Team World.
Adam Silver got this one exactly right. There’s something poetic in giving him his flowers in this setting with the Clippers hosting All-Star weekend, especially after he didn’t get to show out for Team USA in 2024.
USA Stripes forward Kawhi Leonard, left, celebrates with forward Kevin Durant after scoring against World during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, in Inglewood, Calif. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)AP
**Kevin Durant’s burner moment was the subplot the weekend didn’t know it needed**
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You couldn’t script it. The timing of Durant’s, alleged, burner-account direct message leak was the exact garnish that Sunday’s All-Star game needed.
It instantly became the unofficial B‑plot of the entire weekend. Only in the NBA could a leak happen in the middle of All-Star Weekend and somehow enhance the product.
While there has been no official word on whether the account was actually Durant’s, the fact that he was constantly looking at his phone during the pregame festivities didn’t help his case by any means.
It became an instant meme, a running joke during the game and a reminder that the league thrives when it leans into absurdity instead of running from it. Durant may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but, unintentionally or not, he gave the league a gift.
**Wemby set the tone, but his era won’t come unchallenged—and that’s great**
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Victor Wembanyama played like someone fully prepared to take over the next decade, and honestly, the league needs that kind of ambitious madness.
The All-Star MVP, Anthony Edwards, made it clear that Wemby set the tone and forced everyone else to match his level of play.
But what made the night compelling was how eager the other young stars were to push back.
No fear. No bowing to inevitability. They challenged him, attacked him, and showed zero interest in speeding up his coronation.
The Spurs, and team France, should be salivating if this is the approach Wembanyama will have heading into the next few seasons leading up to the 2028 Summer Olympics.
International basketball is about to enter a golden era. Countries like France, Slovenia and Serbia are ready to take Team USA’s crown.
What’s certain is that the stars that carried Team USA to a gold medal in Paris are on their way out, but if Sunday night’s exhibition was any example, the future of American basketball is in great hands.
**The new All-Star format worked, but we absolutely needed a tiebreaker**
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Give credit where it’s due: the league finally found a format that didn’t turn into a layup line.
There was pace, there was pride, and there was just enough structure to keep things honest.
But there is one thing that I just can’t let go.
Team USA Stripes and Team USA Stars beat each other one time. And yes, the stars were nothing short of dominant in the second game, but why was there not a tiebreaker?
Maybe they conceded the title because of the blowout. Maybe there wasn’t enough time to air another game.
But after both teams went 2-1 with losses to each other, anything would have felt like a better conclusion than just crowing the Stars. The actual game felt like the world’s greatest open gym, so a rubber match for all the marbles doesn’t seem too farfetched.
Hopefully that rubbed some folks on Team Stripes the wrong way.