Adam Silver: “The All-Star Game didn’t work,” would prefer pre/mid-season tournament

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/adam-silver-star-game-didn-011947812.html



Adam Silver: “The All-Star Game didn’t work,” would prefer pre/mid-season tournament



Kurt Helin, NBC Sports
3 hours ago



The NBA’s All-Star weekend is not about the game. Or the Dunk Contest. Or any of the rest of the activities on the court. It’s a showcase of stars, a chance for the marketing machines around the league to go into overdrive, and it’s a chance for the league to hype it’s biggest names. It’s just not about basketball.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver gets that, and he’d like to change things. Silver mused about it at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference going on this weekend in Boston, but was quick to note this is not an easy fix.

“The All-Star Game didn’t work,” Silver said, via the Associated Press, calling it “an afterthought” and saying of the changes so players go on teams drafted by captains “I get it. We put an earring on a pig.”

Silver also talked about chopping off 15-20 percent of the NBA season, say scaling back to 70 games instead of 82. Of course, 70 games would mean six fewer home dates per team, a corresponding drop in revenue, and with that players and everyone involved with the league would have to take a 15-20 percent pay cut. Good luck with that.

Which is why Silver talked about possibly trying to replace that revenue with money from a preseason or midseason tournament, similar to what is seen in European soccer. There could be multiple smaller tournaments, Silver said. It would even be possible to have some of these tournaments overseas — Europe, Asia — where the NBA is working to grow its brand.

The forward-looking Sloan Conference is a safe place for Silver to think out loud about some of these far-reaching issues. He also was quick to admit that any changes to the length of the NBA season are not coming soon — changing all that tradition around an All-Star Game would be very difficult (and require players’ union and ownership buy-in). Even if the game itself borders on unwatchable we will keep getting it for the foreseeable future.


bob
MY NOTE: NO commissioner of any sport wants to hear this but All Star games "don't work", period. As far as a pre-midseason game goes, I guess that's ok, but just realize that the all-stars will not be selected because of the great year they're having, because there hasn't been much of the season to judge them, but rather because of the great season they had the previous season. I realize players need that week off so their bodies can rest and heal and all, but to really make this thing worth a damn you should make it like the NFL Pro Bowl, a post-season event.


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It’s not the other events, they are fun.

It’s the actual game that sucks so bad it’s unwatchable, no defense, guys taking turns dunking, pure garbage....I haven’t watched it for more than 2 minutes for 4 years now.

The NBA All Star game has always been a complete joke, so it was not just this year that the commissioner should be criticizing. I do not think that I have watched an NBA all star game in about 15 years and certainly will not watch again next year either.

Perhaps make up some additional skill games to substitute for the "game" to keep fans interested and to give the majority of the league's players a few days off?