The ongoing NBA All-Star Weekend is more than an event for fans and players to take a break from the regular season games. It is an opportunity for Adam Silver to see whether the new changes implemented by him can change the opinion about the All-Star event for now, and years to come. Fans might remember the NBA commissioner revealing back in November 2024 that, “We’re looking at other formats. I think there’s no doubt that the players were disappointed as well in last year’s All-Star Game. We all want to do a better job providing competition and entertainment for our fans.” A new format was promised, and a new format has been delivered. Unfortunately, even that is not enough to get Nikola Jokic on board.

As part of the new All-Star game format, the traditional East vs. West competition will be discarded. Instead, the upcoming game will be played in a tournament-style competition, with 4 teams, comprising of 8 players in each squad, competing. Nikola Jokic was named to Charles Barkley’s ‘Global Stars’ roster, which was made up of other international origin stars like Victor Wembanyama, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, etc. During the All-Star Media Day, the Serbian was reportedly asked why he doesn’t think his game translates to the All-Star Game. It would have been the reporter’s belief that the format change would convince the Denver Nuggets star to take the All-Star game more seriously now.  Unfortunately, Nikola Jokic denied playing nice even this time around too. He straight out said, “My answer would not be nice, so I’m not going to give it to you.” Yikes!

Jokic’s remark would certainly disappoint Adam Silver. After all, during an interview with the San Francisco Standard, the interviewer highlighted that the NBA commissioner had earlier expressed his disappointment, very bluntly, about the low competitive level at recent games. When asked if low competition during the upcoming All-Star game would disappoint him too, Silver replied “Yes. [Very small chuckle.]”

Making the All-Star game interesting has been a need for Adam Silver and other NBA front-office members. To know the reason why, all one has to do is look at last year’s game, where a record 397 points were produced by the East and West teams. The players were simply walking up and down the court, reportedly launching halfcourt bombs and throwing alley-oops endlessly. The result of this lack of effort was seen, or rather ‘not seen’, soon enough. After all, the 2024 All-Star game reportedly recorded an average of only 5.4 million viewers. This was the second-lowest viewership for the game. Which year holds the top spot, you ask? That would be the year before that, aka 2023 (4.6 million).

These numbers reflected one thing. Gone were the days as seen in ‘The Last Dance’, where a veteran Michael Jordan, and a young Kobe Bryant gave their best to keep their respective teams in the lead. Therefore, no one could blame Adam Silver for seeking a better level of competitiveness from the league players. If something could incentivize them, it would be a format change. Unfortunately, even after that, Nikola Jokic is not choosing to be serious. As it turns out, he isn’t the only one.

Which other NBA players chose to discard Adam Silver’s All-Star Game format?

Kevin Durant was drafted into Shaquille O’Neal’s team for the upcoming game. The 36-year-old was selected for his 15th All-Star game this year. Therefore, he has a foundation for making comparisons. When reports first emerged back in December about the proposed change, Durant straight out stated  “I hate it. I absolutely hate it. All the formats are terrible in my opinion and we should just go back to East-West and just play a game. I think we’ve been trying to bring that flare back somehow with the All-Star Weekend, but I think we just keep it traditional. We’ll see how this one works, you never know. I might be wrong. I’m just another guy with an opinion, but we’ll see how it works.” Boston Celtics head coach Joe Mazzula was another critic back then, as he only stated “I could care less.”

The All-Star Media Day did not have players speaking out in praise of the format. Instead, they were more focused on highlighting changes that Adam Silver could have implemented instead. For Jayson Tatum, it was about having a “longer” All-Star Break, and figuring out a “different fine system for tecnhinals”.

Pascal Siakam was optimistic, but not by much, as he stated “It should be fun. I think we’ll will see. We’re all trying to see if it’s gonna work, if it’s gonna be something different. I’m excited regardless. If we’re gonna play hard, I’ll play hard. If we’re gonna hang out, I’ll hang out.”

Meanwhile, Stephen Curry had something else to talk about entirely. The three-point leader expects Adam Silver to set a “refs grading system” as public information. Given his increase in frustration with the officials over in-game calls, such a proposal coming from Curry certainly makes sense.

Where do you stand in regards to the format change? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.