It was better than the year before, but it wasn’t actually good.
That was NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s assessment of this year’s new All-Star format of a mini-tournament of four teams, which echoes the conventional wisdom coming out of the weekend in San Francisco. Add in some extended breaks during the broadcast — including during the championship game of the new tournament — and it didn’t work, which is why that format will be one-and-done.
“I thought this was a little better, but it was a miss,” Silver said Thursday during a press conference announcing the NBA’s working toward a European league. “We’re not there in terms of creating an All-Star experience that we can be proud of and that our players can be proud of.”
What would work? The NBA is thinking about an international competition.
Next year, NBC takes over the broadcast of the All-Star Game, set for Feb. 15, 2026, which happens to fall right in the middle of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, which will run Feb. 6 to 22. That sets up nicely for an international-themed competition, something the NHL had great success with this year, running a Four Nations Face-Off in place of its All-Star festivities.
“We’re going to fall right in the middle of the Winter Olympics, that they will be both the lead-in into the All-Star Game and the lead-out will be out on the West Coast…” Silver said, noting the Clippers will host the game in Inglewood/Los Angeles. “Which, given the Olympic competition, sort of is creating new thoughts around how we can bring national competition to bear. Of course, we took note of the great success the NHL had with their national team competition as their All-Star festivities…
“People have floated USA-World. I’m not sure that makes sense with the level of development, if that’s fair to lump all the other countries together these days. Maybe that we can single out, there are some different national teams that can compete.”
One of the knocks of the USA vs. World format was the depth of the international All-Star roster. While it would have some of the league’s biggest names at the top — Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Victor Wembanyama, Luka Doncic — the back-end of a 12-man roster might not have the All-Star level of talent that the USA would have. This means that some international players would get to be All-Stars over their more deserving American counterparts, something Silver and the NBA seem acutely aware of.
However, what the NBA (and now NBC) most want out of the All-Star experience is player buy-in and real competition — games played with pride. A USA vs. World format might deliver that.
“I would love that. Oh, I would love that,” Antetokounmpo said during this year’s All-Star weekend. “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.”
“I would love to. My opinion is that it’s more purposeful,” Wembanyama added. “There’s more pride in it. More stakes.”
Whatever format it ultimately takes, expect an international-themed All-Star Game in 2026.
And no more of the four-team tournament. Fortunately.
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