NBA All-Star Weekend marks an important point in the season. More than half of the regular season is in the books, contenders and tanking teams have revealed themselves, and players finally get a chance to catch their breath instead of constantly hopping from city to city.
For fans, though, it's become an annual challenge: how do we find any real intrigue? The event has long since lost any meaningful competitive edge. You could argue we haven't seen players truly going at it since the days of Kobe Bryant.
Still, there was hope that this year might be different. Remember when Ja Morant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and others flooded social media after Mac McClung won his third straight Slam Dunk Contest? The message was essentially: "Maybe we should enter next year and show everyone how it's done." Fast forward a year. You open the dunk contest participant list, and the first name you see is Carter Bryant.
If only Bryant meant Kobe. Or if Carter meant Vince. Instead, we get Carter Bryant alongside Keshad Johnson (who?), Jase Richardson (who?), and the only participant with any real star connection—Jackson Hayes, whose biggest claim to fame is sharing the Lakers locker room with LeBron James and Luka Dončić. No Morant. No Zion Williamson. No Greek Freak. No McClung. Not even Jaylen Brown.
That's... disappointing. The Three-Point Contest, however, has the potential to steal the show. Stephen Curry won't be there, but the field is still loaded. Devin Booker. Damian Lillard. Next-generation sharpshooters Kon Knueppel and Tyrese Maxey. Donovan Mitchell and Jamal Murray are more than capable of putting on a shooting clinic. Digging into All-Star Weekend also reveals some fun traditions—like the Celebrity Game.
This year's lineup includes Brazilian football legend Cafu, NBA insider Shams Charania, rapper GloRilla, and NFL star Amon-Ra St. Brown. It'll be especially entertaining watching them try to deal with former NBA center Tacko Fall. At 7-foot-6 (229 cm), he tends to make everything look ridiculous. And that's part of the fun.
For us, though, the biggest attraction of Friday night is the Rising Stars tournament. We may not get Vince Carter soaring through the air in the dunk contest, but we'll still see him on the sidelines. Carter selected Egor Demin for his Rising Stars roster, which features rookies, sophomores, and G League standouts competing in a four-team mini-tournament.
Who else is worth watching? No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg. His former Duke teammate Kon Knueppel. Last season's Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle—assuming he's healthy after picking up an injury in his last game. Another Rookie of the Year contender, Dylan Harper. Rapidly improving Lithuanian forward Matas Buzelis. And No. 3 overall pick VJ Edgecombe. This tournament could be surprisingly competitive because the reward is significant: the winning team advances to Sunday's All-Star event to face squads led by the league's biggest stars. That brings us to the All-Star Game itself. At least on paper. The NBA continues to experiment with the format, and this year we'll see a four-team competition: two teams made up of American players, one international squad, and one team consisting of the Rising Stars champions.
Which means there's a very real possibility that Egor Demin could end up sharing the floor with players like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Dončić, and Nikola Jokić—provided his team wins the Rising Stars tournament first. Not everyone will be in California. Stephen Curry and reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will both miss the event through injury. Brandon Ingram and Alperen Şengün have been called up as replacements.
The rest of the MVP contenders, however, are expected to be there. Victor Wembanyama. Nikola Jokić. Luka Dončić. Giannis Antetokounmpo. And plenty of other superstars. So while the dunk contest lacks star power, the All-Star Game itself certainly doesn't. Now it's just a matter of giving fans the show they've been waiting for.
And, of course, there's one question that might be more intriguing than anything happening on the court:
What book will Victor Wembanyama bring into the locker room this time?
