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Tim Bontemps
The NBA announced its long-awaited plans to overhaul the All-Star Game on Tuesday night, detailing how the new “United States of America once again vs. the World” format will run and how teams will be formed.
Beyond the obvious change, going to a three-team format with eight-man rosters – two of which will be made up of American players, and a third will be international selections – there are a few changes to how those players will be selected.
The basics – five starters and seven reserves from each conference, with a combination of fans, media and players voting for the starters and coaches choosing the reserves – remain unchanged. However, what is different is that there will no longer be any situational requirements.
In the past, the starting lineup was composed of two backcourt players and three frontcourt players, with an equal division of reserves and two wild cards. This year, however, the starters will be the top five vote-getters, regardless of position, and the reserves will be the top seven, also regardless of position.
The league answered another pending question — what happens if those 24 players aren’t evenly divided among 16 American and eight international players? Or will the league force the voting to follow those numbers?
The solution is that if the player pool does not reflect that 16-8 split, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver will name additional players to the roster to get to the minimum of 16 American or minimum eight international players.
So if there are 14 Americans and 10 international players, Silver will name two more Americans to reach the 16-player minimum. And if it had been an 18-6 split, he would have named two international players to reach the eight-player minimum.
Both the NBA and NBC — which is taking over the All-Star Game broadcast this year as part of the league’s new television agreement after spending the last few decades on TNT — are hoping the change will breathe life into an event in which Silver has repeatedly tried over the years to get players to invest more energy.
Part of the appeal of the international format for NBC’s purposes is that All-Star Weekend is being built into the network’s coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in February.
As a result, the All-Star Game will not take place at its usual 8 p.m. ET start time, as was regularly the case previously, and will instead take place at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT, immediately following the Team USA Hockey game.
As usual, there will be four 12-minute “quarters” as part of the game – although those quarters will be played far differently than usual.
The first three quarters will be made up of round-robin games involving three teams, allowing each of them to play twice.
The “fourth” quarter will be played between the two best teams after the round-robin action. And, if all three teams have 1–1 records, the two teams with the best point differential will advance to the championship game.
This year’s All-Star Weekend will take place at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles shears‘ new area, and will launch on Friday, February 13.
