The 2024-25 NBA regular season campaign is drawing to a close, with the postseason drawing near quickly. While there have been a lot of topics of discussion throughout the year, one topic commissioner Adam Silver frequently finds himself discussing is the NBA All-Star Game.
In an effort to get more participation among their players, Silver has tinkered with the league's All-Star Game format in recent years. The format this year saw the All Stars get split into three teams, with a fourth team (the winner of the Rising Stars challenge) being added to this mini tournament to balance things out.
Three games were played, with the winners of the first two matchups facing off in the championship game. While the scores indicate competitive contests, there was still a very notable lack of defense and effort from the players, with many fans lamenting the new format, particularly when it came to the inclusion of the Rising Stars squad.
When comparing the NBA's product to the NHL's Four-Nations Face Off, which yielded several highly competitive contests, fans were not pleased with Silver and company. When looking back on the 2025 All-Star Game, Silver admitted that it was a big miss on the NBA's part.
"I thought we made almost an immeasurable amount of progress," Silver said on Thursday. "I sit in there and thought this was a little better, but it was a miss. We're not there in terms of creating an All-Star experience that we can be proud of and that our players can be proud of."
Adam Silver admits the changes for this year's All-Star game "was a miss" pic.twitter.com/APwFzxDQRL
— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) March 27, 2025
After another failed experiment with the All-Star Game this season, it will be back to the drawing board for Silver and the rest of the league's executives this offseason. For now, though, Silver and company will be focused on finishing out the current campaign and eventually declaring the league's newest champion.
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This story was originally published March 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM.