Having made the decision to revert back to the East vs. West format and a standard 12-minute fourth quarter for the 2024 All-Star Game, commissioner Adam Silver tells Marc J. Spears of ESPN’s Andscape that the NBA is also planning additional changes in the hopes of improving the game’s level of play.
As Silver explains, a conversation with Chris Paul made him realize that the All-Star Game’s alterations to pregame and halftime protocols – including longer pregame introductions and an extended musical performance at the half – disrupt players’ typical routines and making them more inclined to treat it like a meaningless exhibition.
“I’ll take responsibility for that,” Silver told Spears. “We’re sending mixed signals. And if we want guys to treat this like a real game, and again, this is not about Finals intensity, it’s just a fun game. But if we want players to treat it that way, we have to treat it that way. And so, it means that the introduction is going to have to be a little bit shorter and halftime’s going to have to be a little bit more typical, starting in Indianapolis.
“… I anticipate we’ll still have halftime entertainment. But it won’t be as long,” Silver continued. “I recognize this is not the Super Bowl. It’s an All-Star Game. It’s a different vibe, and we can still have an entertaining halftime but get the guys back on the floor in a more reasonable time. When it comes to the [All-Star] Game, we just got to make it clear to everybody involved, coaches included, that we’re looking for a basketball game.”
The NBA’s All-Star Game will be played in Indianapolis in 2024 and in San Francisco in 2025.
Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:
- LeBron James offered an update on his son Bronny James on Monday, telling reporters – including ESPN’s Dave McMenamin – that Bronny will undergo a medical examination later this month following his July cardiac arrest. If he passes that exam, the plan is for Bronny to return to practice for USC with the intention of playing this season, according to LeBron.
- Former NBA first-round pick Bruno Caboclo has signed a contract with KK Partizan, the Serbian team announced today in a press release. While Caboclo’s new deal with Partizan runs through the 2024/25 season, Italian club Reyer Venezia has maintained that it holds the rights to the forward for the ’23/24 campaign after signing him earlier this year, so it’s unclear whether or not Caboclo has officially negotiated his release from that contract.
- The NBA announced on Tuesday that the Basketball Africa League’s fourth season will tip off in March 2024 and will expand to South Africa for the first time in league history.
- While it’s not necessarily surprising that the Nuggets and Celtics have looked like the NBA’s best teams through the season’s first two weeks, it’s impressive that the two clubs have played so well early on after overhauling their rotations during the offseason, writes John Hollinger of The Athletic.
More must-reads: