Another year, another disappointing All-Star Weekend. The NBA has changed the format for the league’s signature midseason event three years in a row, but whether teams are decided by a draft or conference, or if the game is singular or a tournament, nothing seems to generate the sort of excitement that the league has hoped for. Once again, talk has turned to a format change. The popular idea right now would be to play a game between American-born All-Stars and foreign-born All-Stars.
“I would love to. My opinion is that it’s more purposeful,” French phenom Victor Wembanyama told reporters on Sunday.
“There’s more pride in it. More stakes.” Greek star Giannis Antetokounmpo added. “I would love that. Oh, I would love that. I think that would be the most interesting and most exciting format. I would love that. For sure, I’d take pride in that. I always compete, but I think that will give me a little bit more extra juice to compete.”
Anyone who has ever watched Team USA participate in a major international tournament sees the appeal here. Foreign-born players take pride in competing against the Americans. It’s a measuring stick, a chance to prove that they can stand up to the world’s dominant basketball superpower. Hockey has had a lot of success with the 4 Nations Face-Off, a tournament featuring an American team as well as Swedish, Finnish and Canadian rosters. If the goal is simply to generate a competitive game, the USA vs. World format has real potential.
The problems have less to do with the game itself than the selection process. Of the 24 players chosen as All-Stars initially this season, only six were born internationally. A seventh, Karl-Anthony Towns, plays for the Dominican Republic internationally, and a replacement All-Star, Kyrie Irving, is in the process of trying to change his classification so that he can play for Australia. Even with both and a healthy Antetokounmpo, rosters are far from even. Obviously, a 16-on-eight game isn’t feasible. The rosters would need to be balanced. How exactly would the NBA go about doing that?
The obvious way of doing so would be to choose 12 players from each pool, but that obviously creates a fairness problem. There are far more American-born players in the NBA than foreign-born players. That might one day change, but it seems unlikely that any sort of 50-50 equilibrium is ever reached. International players would have an easier path to the All-Star Game, and all of the benefits that come with that.
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NBA rosters have long since expanded beyond 12 players, but All-Star rosters have remained firm at 24 total. One likely explanation for that is that it makes sense for the league to limit the number of players who can use “All-Star” as a negotiating tool in contract talks. Being an All-Star comes with leverage. It’s hard to imagine the NBPA allowing certain players easier access to that leverage than others. This also eliminates the other possibility of simply naming the 24 most deserving players and then adding All-Stars to the side with fewer until it reaches 12. The NBA probably doesn’t want 30 total All-Stars in a given season. If it did, well, All-Star rosters probably would have expanded already.
The tournament format the NBA introduced this season offered an elegant possible solution in smaller roster sizes. Team Chuck was essentially this year’s international team as it included all of the originally chosen international All-Stars. It was far from perfect, though, as the short games, long breaks and divided American talent prevented the sort of drama and intensity that a true USA vs. World game might have created.
One day, it might make sense for the All-Star format to move toward a USA vs. World game. Today, there are still logistical questions to be answered. If the league can solve these problems, it’s worth considering. After all, it’s not as if anything else it has tried is working.
