Recently, the NBA All-Star weekend festivities concluded in the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, the home of the Clippers. While the game itself drew better reviews than it had in previous years, many fans were left underwhelmed by the events of Saturday afternoon, which culminated in the dunk contest, won by Miami Heat wing Keshad Johnson.
One idea that has been pushed by fans for many years now is the implementation of a 1-1 tournament between players at All-Star weekend, and recently, Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports reported that NBC is already lobbying for some new additions to All-Star weekend, and that “potential options include the addition of a fourth event, such as a 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 tournament.”
“On the NBC side, we’re thinking if there’s another element that could be added that would make Saturday even more of a showcase for the players,” said NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood.
NBC has taken over a large chunk of the NBA broadcasting this year, including the All-Star weekend festivities, and thus has a large stake in how entertaining the action is to fans.
The executives at NBC seemed to be happy with what they saw from the game itself.
“The star of the weekend? We had real basketball for 48 minutes of action, the way they formatted it with 12-minute games. It created 48 minutes of basketball just like you’d get on a normal game. Tying in the drama of USA vs. the World was a really perfect way to uplift the All-Star Game and give us a winning storyline coming out of the Olympics,” said Flood.
Indeed, the round robin tournament had a marked increase in competition from previous years, which some attributed to the tone set early on by San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama.
In any case, it remains to be seen whether star players would agree to put their pride on the line and compete in a 1 vs 1 tournament at future All-Star weekends.
