NBA, NBPA confirm new All-Star Game format

As expected, the NBA will experiment with a new format for this season’s All-Star Game. The league and the National Basketball Players Association have announced that All-Star Sunday will feature a mini-tournament with four teams and three games instead of a single, full-length game.

Reporting last month indicated that this was the direction the NBA was headed. Now it’s official.

The voting process for the 24 All-Stars will remain the same, with 12 players selected from each conference. However, instead of being split into two teams, TNT analysts and honorary “general managers” Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal will draft the 24 All-Stars onto three eight-player teams.

The new format will emulate the one already being used in the Rising Stars event on Friday night, and the team that wins the Rising Stars tournament will be the fourth team that competes on All-Star Sunday. TNT analyst Candace Parker will be that team’s honorary GM.

The four teams will play a pair of semifinal matches. The winner of each game will advance to the final, and the first team to reach or surpass 40 points will win.

Although four teams will now compete on All-Star Sunday, the coaches for those teams will still only come from the top club in each conference, not the top two. The No. 1 seed in the East and the West will each send its head coach and an assistant to All-Star weekend. The head coaches will coach a team of All-Stars, while one assistant will coach the remaining All-Star team, and the other will coach the Rising Stars team.

The NBA and NBPA have also renegotiated the prize money for All-Star Sunday's winners and losers. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement called for players on the winning team to receive a $100K bonus and players on the losing team to earn $25K. Under the new system, players on the winning team will receive $125K, while players on the second-place team get $50K, and players on the two teams that lose in the semifinals will earn $25K apiece.

This season’s All-Star weekend in San Francisco will begin on Feb. 14, with the new tournament taking place on Feb. 16. The draft of the 24 All-Stars will occur on Feb. 6 on TNT.