By Freddie Fine
This past Presidents’ Day Weekend, the NBA held the 69th annual All-Star game in Chicago, Illinois. This weekend consists of a variety of events, including the celebrity game, the rising stars game, the three-Point contest, the dunk contest, the skills challenge, and the All-Star game. Every year the NBA does this, and usually, the most anticipated events are the dunk contest and three-point contest. However, in the future, the actual All-Star game will be highly anticipated thanks to new rules put in place.
On January 30th, the NBA announced the new All-Star Game rules in hopes of making the game more competitive. In the past, players usually shot threes and attempted crazy dunks, however, for years fans have been wanting for a real game of basketball played between the game’s best talent. The new format allows for both of these things. The first three quarters consist of normal 12 minute quarters, in which the teams can win money for charity by having the highest scores in each individual quarter. However, in the final quarter, the total score from all the quarters for each team matters. Instead of a clock, 24 points are added to the team that has the highest score in order to make a set score. Whichever team hits that set score first wins. This was implemented to honor Kobe Bryant.
A big part of these new rules is being able to give back to the community through the game. “As part of NBA All-Star 2020, more than $1 million will be contributed to Chicago community non-profit organizations through NBA Cares outreach efforts. These efforts will culminate during the NBA All-Star Game when each team will play for a Chicago-based charity beneficiary, as selected by team captains Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers,” (NBA Official Release). The winner of each of the first three quarters will receive $100,000 for their charity, and the winner of the final quarter receives $200,000. Being able to give over $1 million dollars to charity through the All-Star events is an amazing way to give back to the community. This led to a more competitive fourth quarter.
In the final quarter of the game, a very unusual thing happened. The game became competitive now that there was a target score to reach, as well as $200,000 on the line for their charity. Players were playing defense, passing the ball, fouling on defense, and even Kyle Lowry, the Raptors point guard, was drawing charges. Fans were ecstatic to see this and many expressed this on Twitter, with a lot of the trending topics relating to the new format. Bleacher Report summarized it perfectly tweeting, “Actual competition. Tough defense. Played like a pickup game in the 4th. New All-Star game format gave the matchup new life.”
The new format provides great hope for the future as a consistent way for the league to give back to the community. Also, now that players know that the game will become competitive, fans can anticipate a consistently more exciting and competitive All-Star game. The entire All-Star weekend was a great success for the NBA and expect them to keep this up in the future.
https://www.nba.com/article/2020/01/30/2020-all-star-game-format-official-release
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1229265347477299201