Early NBA All-Star Saturday falls flat

NBA officials made big miscue with All-Star 2026

Traditionally, the Slam Dunk Contest is the final event of All-Star Saturday. In the last few years of Mac McClung's dunking three-peat, the contest has delivered. However, the NBA struggles to get contestants for dunking, relying heavily on rookies, G-Leaguers and fringe NBA players, like 2026 dunk champ Keshad Johnson. The most famous member of thus year's dunk field, Jaxson Hayes, averages 6.9 points in 17.7 minutes for the Los Angeles Lakers.

By contrast, the Three-Point Contest features a field of stars. Five of the eight players are current All-Stars. Knueppel is one of the NBA's best rookies, Lillard is one of the NBA's 75 Greatest Players and even Bobby Portis is an NBA champion.

If they were going to rearrange the order, the Three-Point Contest should probably go last. It's consistently the most dramatic event, has a crystal clear scoring system and a clock and directly relates to the NBA game, not requiring a dunk coach or choreographer.

If nothing else, the Three-Point Contest shouldn't open the festivities in a year where they're starting three hours earlier than normal, a change that Adam Silver's focus on social media and influencers during All-Star Weekend wasn't able to convey to the general public.

The NBA is always looking to beef up interest for All-Star Weekend, but they put the most compelling event in the middle of the afternoon or the early evening on the East Coast, in front of a mostly-empty crowd. The Rising Stars game Friday night was even emptier, perhaps due to a 4 PM local start time.

Perhaps the NBA couldn't do anything about NBC's All-Star coverage, despite the prime time Olympics broadcast featuring only tape-delayed events. Still, it's long been time that All-Star Saturday's actual top event, the Three-Point Contest, gets the headlining spot it deserves.