Instead of trying to make the All-Star Game more competitive, the NBA might instead focus on doing "different things" during All-Star weekend, commissioner Adam Silver told CNN Sunday, pointing to this year's 3-point contest between Sabrina Ionescu and Stephen Curry. He also addressed the possibility of Caitlin Clark, who will all but certainly be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft next month, joining Ionescu and Curry next time.
In an interview on "King Charles," Silver told Gayle King and Charles Barkley that the league will consider a Team USA vs. Team World format for the All-Star Game. He is not convinced, however, that any format change will result in the All-Stars playing hard.
Silver said that "our feeling going into Indiana" for this year's All-Star Game was that "we had one more opportunity to go, in essence, back to basketball." Silver called Larry Bird the "honorary captain" for the weekend; at the annual legends brunch, Bird urged the players to compete. There was an emphasis on making the game itself more closely resemble a normal NBA game: no more pregame draft, no more Elam Ending, less elaborate pregame introductions, a shorter halftime show and a return to East vs. West. None of this worked. The final score was 211-186.
"It was a great weekend, but it wasn't a basketball game," Silver said. "And had I not seen what happened this year, I think we were ready to do US vs. international. I'm just wondering now, and it's a good conversation to have, whether this generation of players -- and the teams are [complicit] too because nobody wants them to play hard at the All-Star Game, nobody wants them to get hurt -- they see it as a midseason break. I think of something that was a huge attraction, for example: Sabrina against Steph. I mean, it says so much about the game. I think of, again, our generation: Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs, what was it, the Battle of the Sexes? This was the opposite. This was, as Sabrina said, just two great shooters out on the floor. So I think, maybe, as opposed to trying to create a super-competitive basketball game, which I'm not sure the teams or the players really want at that moment, we should do more fun [events]."
The takeaway, then, is that "we should just be looking to do different things and just make it a celebration of basketball," Silver said. "I mean, we're going to look at US vs. international. I just think maybe we're past that point where we're going to play a truly competitive game. And by the way, it's happened in other sports."
Silver said that the "worst part" is that players told him, both before and after the game, that they know fans have been disappointed by their lack of effort. He blamed himself for trying to solve the effort problem rather than accepting that, for various reasons, it is unlikely to change.
"I accept responsibility, as the commissioner of the league," Silver said. "I think we should've known at this point for an All-Star Game -- as I started to say before, the NFL Pro Bowl, [they] moved it to flag football -- there's just a recognition it's a different time."
In his conversations with players, Silver "didn't get the sense that they went out there and said, 'Well, we know what the league wants, and we know TNT wants us to play hard, but we're just not going to do it,'" he said. "I think it's just sort of, once they got out there, I think, particularly the young players, they see it as, again, a midseason break, an opportunity to have fun, an opportunity to take a break from a very long season. I mean, we roughly have 1,300 games over the course of the year, all incredibly competitive games, and I think they see that as something different."
Asked directly about the Ionescu vs. Curry contest coming back with Clark involved next year, Silver said: "Sabrina's from the Bay Area. You know the All-Star Game's in San Francisco, of course Steph is there. So I ran into both of them the next day; I said, 'What do you think?' They were like, 'Game on for next year.' But they both ... want to have best of three. Which I thought was really interesting. They were both nervous. I mean, they're two of the greatest shooters in the world. It's a lot of pressure when it's one round, you know, you just sort of -- you're off a little bit. So they want to do it again. But I'm sure we'll be integrating some other WNBA players. Obviously, everybody's excited about Caitlin coming into the league. But there's some obviously great talent in the WNBA right now."
To close the interview, King asked Silver if a small part of him wished Taylor Swift were dating an NBA player rather than Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, at which point Barkley put his head in his hand and said, "Oh, Gayle." Silver laughed, but did not hesitate to answer.
"A big part," he said.
