Under Maintenance
We deeply apologize for interrupting your reading but Vendetta is currently undergoing some important maintenance! You may experience some layout shifts, slow loading times and dififculties in navigating.
Kevin Durant isn’t a fan of new All-Star Game format
Kevin Durant isn’t a fan of new All-Star Game format
The NBA’s All-Star weekend has been one of the more embarrassing “big” weekends in the American Sports calendar for the last several years. The arid, lousy skills challenges, dunk contests and 3-point contests–outside of Stephen Curry v. Sabrina Ionescu–are masked by an ever-changing, haphazard All-Star Game that never seems to interest the actual players playing in it.
The NBA, once again, will be testing a new tournament-style format with four teams and three games; the teams, composed of eight players, will be drafted by the Inside the NBA crew on Feb. 6, 10 days before the All-Star game, the league announced Tuesday.
When asked about the new format, Kevin Durant, a 14-time All-Star, expressed disdain for it.
“I hate it, I absolutely hate it,” Durant said, according to Gerald Bourguet of PHNX Sports. “Terrible. All-Star Game format changing, all the formats — terrible in my opinion. We should just go back to East-West. Just play a game. I think we’ve been trying to bring that flare back somehow with All-Star Weekend, I think we just keep the tradition.
“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.”
The league initially moved away from the East-West game in 2018, with a seemingly new format every year. Though the East-West format returned in 2023-24. But the contest still didn’t have the competitive flavor that the league has been searching for, for the better part of the last decade.
Adam Silver is throwing turds at a wall, hoping they stick. Who can blame him? None of us have come up with a reasonable solution, and the star-studded festivities have been unwatchable. If we think today’s current product is worse, All-Star weekend is 10 times worse.
***
Click Here for more NBA Content
Subscribe to Vendetta’s Twitch
Subscribe to Vendetta’s YouTube
Check out the Vendetta Shop
Check out Vendetta Fantasy Contests
