NBA announces All-Star tournament plan this season: 4 teams, 3 games, 1 night
LAS VEGAS — The NBA's All-Star Game is going to be an All-Star tournament this season, with the league announcing Tuesday it has finalized plans to use a different format for the upcoming midseason showcase in San Francisco.
And scoring is sure to be down — way, way, way down.
This season's format is a four-team, three-game, one-night tournament, three teams of eight All-Stars apiece and the fourth team being the winner of the Rising Stars challenge for first- and second-year players. The winning team in all games will be the first to score 40 points.
It'll happen Feb. 16 at the home of the Golden State Warriors. The Rising Stars event is there Feb. 14, headlining All-Star Friday.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has wanted a more competitive All-Star event for some time, and this change comes after the teams combined to score a record 397 points — 211-186 was the final — in last season's game at Indianapolis.
All-Star voting begins Thursday and the format is unchanged.
Fans — who can vote through Jan. 20 — can cast ballots daily for three frontcourt and two backcourt players from both conferences.
That'll be part of a weighted formula — 50% fan vote, 25% media panel vote, 25% current player vote — to determine the 10 players that will be designated as “starters.”
NBA head coaches will pick the 14 players designated as “reserves."
TNT analysts Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith will draft teams from the 24-player All-Star pool Feb. 6. The teams will bear their names — Team Shaq, Team Charles and Team Kenny.
The Rising Stars winner that'll go to the All-Star tournament will be called Team Candace, for Candace Parker.
The coaching staffs from the teams with the best records in the Eastern and Western Conferences will go to the All-Star Game. (It cannot be the Milwaukee or Minnesota coaching staffs this year, since they coached last year.)
There is a prize pool of $1.8 million for the All-Star Game.
Each player on the All-Star champion team gets $125,000, each player on the runner-up team will get $50,000 and the players on the teams eliminated in the semifinals will each get $25,000.
