Author: Meagan Liang
With declining interest and effort by both players and viewers, the NBA changed the format this year, hoping to find an answer to this issue. Unfortunately, I do not think they were successful in finding that answer as another NBA All-Star weekend has completed rather uninspiringly with the Mac McClung 3-peat being my personal highlight of the weekend. Below I give a brief recap and analysis of how the weekend went and give my thoughts on the overall format as well as future changes that should be made in order to increase overall competitiveness, engagement, and most importantly, entertainment for the viewers.
NBA.com
Skills Challenge Winners: Team Cavaliers
This years NBA Skills Challenge champions were Evan Mobley and Donavan Mitchell representing Team Cavaliers who were victorious over Team Rooks consisting of Zaccharie Risacher (Atlanta Hawks) and Alex Sarr (Washington Wizards), Team Spurs consisting of Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama, and the hometown Team Warriors consisting of Draymond Green and Moses Moody. In round 1, Team Spurs went first. They had an interesting strategy, opting to just throw the balls off the rack instead of shooting them to save time. However, this ended up disqualifying them from the competition. The commentators raised an interesting question after this; had Chris Paul and Wembanyama attempted at least 1 shot and thrown the rest of the balls away, would their run have counted? Team Rooks competed next, finishing with a solid time of 1:20 just one second behind Team Cavs who went third and finished in 1:19. The final team of round 1 was Team Warriors who excited the home crowd finishing 16 seconds faster than Team Cavs with efficient shooting and sinking their passes on the first try. This meant the final round was a showoff between Team Cavs and Team Warriors. First was the Cavs, who were more efficient than they were in round 1, getting the majority of their passes and shots on the first or second attempt to finish with a time of 1 minute, placing pressure on Team Warriors. For the hometown team, Moody completed his portion efficiently, leaving Draymond Green with 30 seconds to finish. However, he choked and missed all three of his passes, then knocked all the balls off the rack accidentally when he went to shoot, wasting precious time. This resulted in Donavan Mitchell and Evan Mobley being crowned the 2025 NBA All-Star Skills Challenge champions.
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3-Point Contest Winner: Tyler Herro
Round 1 resulted in the eliminations of Norman Powell, Cam Johnson, Cade Cunningham, Damian Lillard, and Jalen Brunson who all scored 14, 14, 16, 18, and 18 respectively. The most notable of these being Damian Lillard who was unsuccessful in his pursuit of the 3-point contest 3-peat. Tyler Herro narrowly made it through to the finals with a score of 19 along with Darius Garland who scored 24. The highlight of round 1, however, belonged to Buddy Hield, playing in front of his home crowd and lighting up the arena with a round 1 score of 31, tying Stephen Curry and Tyrese Haliburton for the record score in a round of the 3-point contest. He hit both Starry Night balls (worth 3 points each) as well as the money ball on every rack putting him comfortably at the first place on the leaderboard.
Now, moving onto the final round which consisted of Tyler Herro (shooting 38% from 3 this season), Darius Garland (shooting 42.5%), and Buddy Hield (shooting 36.8%). First up was Tyler Herro who set the bar high performing better than his first round by scoring 24 points including hitting both Starry Night balls. Next was Darius Garland who fell short of Herro’s score scoring only 19 points. Finally, Buddy Hield who had a terrible start, going 0/5 on his first rack. This resulted in him having to be perfect on his final rack (also his money ball rack). However, unfortunately, he only went 4/5 resulting in the Herro victory.
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Slam Dunk Contest Winner: Mac McClung
Although Stephon Castle provided formidable competition, it was always going to be 6-2 Mac McClung who did not score less than 50 in the whole contest. In winning this year, he became the first player to 3-peat in the dunk contest, putting him in the conversation as possibly the greatest to compete in the competition. My personal favourite dunk was his first one over the car, with each dunk truly showcasing his incredible 43.5 inch vertical (which is the 7th highest overall in NBA-Combine history). I’m not going to recap every dunk because the majority of the other ones were lackluster, but instead, what I found interesting was reading about McClung’s prize winnings compared to his NBA earnings. In winning, Mac McClung won $105 000 totalling his entire dunk contest winnings to 310,000. According to Front Office Sports, this prize money surpasses his earnings from his time with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers on a two-way contract. The fact that his earnings from winning this contest for 2 years surpassed his earnings from his NBA contracts really surprised me. However, his NBA earnings can surpass his dunk contest prize earnings for the first time in his career if he remains with Orlando on a two-way contract for the remainder of the season.
All-Star Game
Finally moving on to the main event of All-Star Weekend, the All-Star Game. This year, they changed the evening to a tournament-style format, expanding from 2 teams to 4, with TNT commentators and analysts Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley participating in a random draft (although based on the results it’s hard to believe this was not preplanned). The resulting teams were Shaq’s OG’s (NBA All-Stars who have been prominent players for many years), Kenny’s Young Stars (relatively young and less experienced All-Stars), and Chuck’s Global Stars (international All-Stars). The remaining team, Candace’s Rising Stars, was the winning team of the Rising Stars tournament that occurred on Friday night. As always, the biggest unpredictable variable in these games was how much effort these players were actually going to put in.
Game 1: Chuck’s Global Stars vs Kenny’s Young Guns (41-32)
Game 1 between the Young Guns and Global Stars remained fairly close throughout. Canadian Shai Gilgeous Alexander led Chuck’s team with 12 points with Victor Wembanyama and Trae Young (a replacement for Giannis Antetokounmpo) providing big bench impact. Wemby in particular impressed with a block and noticeable effort on rim protection which is often not seen in an All-Star game. On Kenny’s side, there were solid contributions from Evan Mobley, Darius Garland, and Tyler Herro with 6 points each, however, the team going 6-15 from 3 kept them behind. Notably, key player Anthony Edwards for the Young Guns pulled out last minute due to a groin issue, weakening this squad. In the end, with a 3-pointer and a dunk, SGA secured the win for team Chuck, advancing the Global Stars to the finals.
Game 2: Shaq’s OG’s vs Candace’s Rising Stars (42-35)
Candace’s team was composed of rookie and sophomore NBA players who won the Rising Stars tournament on Friday, not to be confused with Kenny’s Young Guns team. Unlike Kenny’s team, no player on Candace’s team was actually declared an all-star. Surprisingly, this resulted in the most competitive game out of the 3, likely because the OG’s did not want to lose to this young team that had 0 All-Stars. The Rising Stars kept it close for the majority of the game with Dalton Knecht and Ryan Dunn leading the team with 8 points each, but ultimately, could not overcome the talent on team Shaq. Led by Damian Lillard with three 3-pointers, including the one to end the game, and Steph Curry with 8 points and 6 rebounds, the OG’s pulled out the win. One highlight here was after hitting two 3-pointers in the game, Curry now holds a record with 53 3-pointers across his 10 All-Star appearances. With the unsurprising team Shaq victory, that meant it would be the OG’s vs Global Stars in the final.
Game 3: Shaq’s OG’s vs Chuck’s Global Stars (41-25)
When we finally reached this game, which weirdly had a long break in the middle of it due to Kevin Hart recognizing members of the “Inside the NBA” crew Chuck, Ernie, Shaq, and Kenny, it was not the close and exciting match we all had hoped for and were anticipating based on the first two games. Team Shaq with momentum from just finishing their last game, started off hot on an 11-0 run thanks to Jason Tatum contributing 8 of those points. In stark contrast, team Chuck started 0-10 with their first point coming from a SGA free throw (even in an All-Star game he manages to find his way to the line). The gap decreased when Wemby checked in, providing 11 points and a block on Kevin Durant leading the team. In this game, it was clear the players were not taking it too seriously as they were attempting nutmegs on each other, behind the back passes, and self alley-oops, more of what we typically see in an All-Star Game. Ending on a Tatum dunk, Shaq’s OG’s comfortably defeated the Global Stars with a score of 41-25. With 12 points (all from 3-pointers), a half-court 3, and the support of his home crowd, it was no surprise that Stephen Curry was named the 2025 NBA All-Star Game MVP.
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Overall Thoughts on the Weekend and Format
For me, the format of the All-Star game did not work, and was not entertaining. With each game already being so short (only up to 40 points with lackluster defending), the fact that they split up each game with competitions or Kevin Hart commentary ruined the flow. In total, Sunday night was a 3 hour broadcast, with only 42 minutes of it being actual basketball games. The rest was taken up by a large amount of commercials, Kevin Hart bits, a random Mr. Beast competition, and panel discussions. Although viewership was still higher than all-time low from 2023, compared to 2024, viewership went down 13%. A large factor was the 14.8 million viewers who tuned into the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary special airing at the same time. Another factor was likely the lack of competition and excitement in the games. This leaves everyone to wonder how they can change the format to make it more exciting. Giannis Antetokounmpo suggested doing USA vs the World, implying more players would be motivated to participate and increase competition if they were representing their countries. Just look at the success of the 4 Nations Tournament. This quick tournament was created by the NHL and allowed players to compete for their country, resulting in competitive and entertaining games better than any All-Star game I have watched. The NBA could take inspiration from this—not necessarily by creating a new tournament, but by reshaping All-Star Weekend to have players compete for national pride. This is just one suggestion, but one thing is for certain, a change is needed.