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Last season, Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu put on a show in a unique All-Star weekend event as they went head-to-head in a three-point shooting contest. The event got a lot of traction as we got to see one of the best men's basketball players in the world go up against one of the best women's players.
The league was hoping to take the event to the next level this season by adding Caitlin Clark and potentially Klay Thompson, but they were unable to make it happen.
“We weren't able to land on a plan we thought would raise the bar off of last year’s special moment,” NBA's Mike Bass said, according to a post from Shams Charania. “We all agreed not to proceed and will instead keep the focus on All-Star Sunday’s new format.”
The plans started to fall through back in January when Caitlin Clark declined the invite. She wants her first three-point contest to be at the WNBA's All-Star weekend.
“Caitlin will not be at NBA All-Star,” Excel Sports Management said in a statement to The Athletic. “She wants her first 3-point contest to be at WNBA All-Star in Indianapolis this summer.”
Even after Clark declined the invite, the league was still working hard to make this event happen in some capacity. Even just a rematch between Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu would've been better than nothing, but they were still unable to make it happen.
“League officials attempted to resurrect the Curry-Ionescu competition in some form as late as Wednesday, multiple league sources said, but couldn’t convince both parties to sign on for a rematch,” a report from The Athletic said. “There was even talk of pushing the competition to Sunday during a break in the reformatted All-Star Game, but that didn’t pick up steam.”
Last year's competition between Sabrina Ionescu and Stephen Curry got a lot of traction, and adding Caitlin Clark into the mix would've added even more. It sounds like there is potential for something like this to happen in the future, but it isn't going to go down during this year's NBA All-Star weekend.
