NBA announces long-awaited changes to All-Star Game

This season’s All-Star Game will have a U.S. vs. World format, according to NBA Communications. The game is scheduled to be played Sunday, Feb. 15 at 5 p.m. ET at the Los Angeles Clippers’ Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California.

Two teams of U.S. players and one team of international players (the World team) will compete in a round-robin tournament featuring four 12-minute games. The three teams will each have a minimum of eight players.

The NBA has experimented with a number of different formats to make the All-Star Game more entertaining and encourage players to take the game more seriously. This is the latest attempt by the league and Player’s Association to make that happen.

As in the past, 24 NBA All-Stars (12 from each conference) will be selected as follows: The five starters from each conference will be selected by fans (50% of the vote), current NBA players (25%) and a media panel (25%). The seven reserve players from each conference will be chosen by NBA head coaches.  This year, the All-Stars will be selected without regard to position.  The process for assigning players to the two U.S. teams will be determined at a later date.

According to the release, if All-Star voting does not result in the selection of 16 U.S. players and eight international players (which can include American players with ties to other countries, if necessary), commissioner Adam Silver will select additional All-Stars to join either group to reach that minimum.

How will the tournament work?

In the round-robin tournament, Team A will play Team B in Game 1. The winning team from Game 1 will take on Team C in Game 2, followed by the losing team of Game 1 meeting Team C in Game 3.

After Game 3, the top two teams by record will advance to face each other in the championship game (Game 4).  If all three teams have a 1-1 record after Game 3, the tiebreaker would be point differential in each team’s two round-robin games.

The reason the All-Star Game will be played earlier than usual is that it will be broadcast by NBC, which is building All-Star Weekend around the network’s coverage of the Winter Olympic Games, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps points out.