What has happened to the All Star game?

And what can Adam Silver do about it?

This year's all-star game was pretty unenjoyable to watch. The only thing I enjoyed from the weekend was the Sabrina vs. Steph 3-point contest, which was ruined by Kenny Smith and his excruciating misogyny throughout the broadcast. Another enjoyable aspect of the horrendous game was the alt-cast with Draymond Green and Charles Barkley, arguably 2 people in the NBA media who can say whatever they want on live television. They were just really having fun in the air, roasting each other, singing karaoke, and talking hoops. Now what can Adam Silver do about the declining state of the all-star game?

INCENTIVES!! Various studies outside of professional sports say that Incentives are one of the key aspects of attracting motivation from people. Now, incentives in this situation can mean money (Like these players need more of it lol), or some sort of effect in the regular season/ playoffs. Since 2017, the MLB All-Star Game determined which league had home-field advantage in the World Series. The MLB got rid of this to reward the team with a higher regular season record, which is what the NBA does now. If the NBA implemented a system where the conference winner of the All-Star game gets home-court advantage in the finals, you are telling me the players wouldn't play harder? Not only that but the viewer count, revenue, jersey sales, and everything else tied to the game would increase.

Now there are a few issues with this fix. What if a team that had no all-stars makes the finals? (Like the Kings for example). They did nothing to contribute to them having home-court advantage. Now, an easy fix to this is for the players to actually give effort in the game, and win so this isn't an argument point, they can just say we played hard and lost. Another issue might be conflicting interests. Let's say the Mavs and the Suns played in the conference finals and the Mavs won, advancing to the finals. Technically the Suns all-stars just helped the Mavs get home-court advantage in the finals, which again, has an easy fix of just not losing in the conference finals. I like the idea of making a nonmoney incentive for the all-star game. Players are likely to try a lot harder if it's something that matters.

Now the thing with money. These guys who are all-stars have a shit ton of it already. The in-season tournament incentive of 100k mattered for each of these players because the Pacers have 6 guys on minimum and rookie deals, and 100k is like 20% of their yearly salary, so for a nonspending team like the Pacers to make it and potentially win the in-season tournament would have been not only an incentive for the lower paid players, but also the guys on large contracts, trying to help their teammates out. For the All-Star game, the incentive for the players to actually try if they were to win would have to be substantial. I think the bingo number for these guys would have to be over 5 Million dollars each from the NBA. That is a 14-man roster, at 5 Million each, coming out to 70 Million dollars as a winning bonus. I also believe that if this were to be implemented, the effort given to making the all-star game period would greatly increase.

Some closing thoughts. I think Adam Silver did an OK job with this year all star competition. The LED floor was an Airball, but the ode to Indiana was awesome and the Jerseys were GREAT. I am also glad he went back to the East-West format and got rid of the draft crap. Hopefully, he looks at the fanbase feedback and does something about this because I can see the All-Star game taking a downward spiral.