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Welcome to the NBA Librarian Weekly, where we usually curate and summarize the best NBA content of the week. But I’m breaking character to share my own thoughts on how to fix this all-star mess, because somehow, the All-Star Game reached new lows this year. The league needs to stop pretending this game is something it’s not and start leaning into what makes it entertaining.

Setting the Stage for Change

I’m sure there will be plenty of articles deeply criticizing the format of All-Star Sunday, and deservedly so—42 minutes of actual gameplay in a 3+ hour broadcast is a joke. What’s supposed to be a celebration of the league’s best players has turned into a half-hearted scrimmage sandwiched between endless commercials and studio segments.

At this point, the All-Star Game isn’t just a letdown—it’s an identity crisis.

The All-Star Game’s Identity Crisis

For a brief moment at the end of the game, there was hope—Kyrie and Wemby going 1v1, Steph splashing threes, Harden pulling off his signature step-back. The skills were on display. There was pace, there was action, and for once, players were really in their bag trying to get a bucket creatively.

The All-Star Game will never be what everyone wants it to be. It’s not going to be a battle of pride where two squads of stars go head-to-head like it actually matters. Players are paid way too much by their teams to go full throttle in a meaningless game and risk injury. It’s not just a bad decision for them—it’s bad for the teams and the league too.

The second someone plays hard and gets hurt, the conversation immediately shifts to: “See, this is why players don’t go all out in a meaningless game.” And that’s all anyone will talk about.

No matter what, the All-Star Game will never be truly competitive. No reasonable amount of money will change players’ minds either. (And “reasonable” is the key word here.) Even tweaking incentives like home-court advantage would just devalue the regular season, especially for top-heavy teams post-All-Star break.

So, since a fully competitive All-Star Game isn’t happening, here’s what we should do:

Let it be what it’s meant to be—a showcase of talent and a chance to see matchups we rarely get.

Incentivizing the Right Plays

So how do we fix the All-Star Game? We incentivize the plays that make it exciting.