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Basketball Hall of Famer Tracy McGrady flashed a look of disdain when recalling last year’s NBA All-Star Game.
“The All-Star Game that we witnessed last year was not an All-Star game,” McGrady told the Guardian. “I don’t know what that was.”
Prior to Sunday night’s contest, the All-Star Game had experienced years of disarray. In an attempt to make the game more competitive, the league replaced the classic East v West matchup and tinkered with multiple formats, including a playground-style selection process with team captains (Team LeBron v Team Stephen); and last year’s four-team tournament that featured a squad of Rising Stars who weren’t yet close to being actual All-Stars.
The results led to glorified shoot-arounds as players gave minimum effort on both sides of the court, eschewing defense while attempting a multitude of uncontested three-point shots and dunks.
In the latest move to increase competition, the NBA sought to entice players with something bigger to play for – global respect. Hence, this year’s “USA v World” format, which featured a three-team tournament between the up-and-coming Team USA Stars, the veterans of Team USA Stripes, and international players of Team World. The round-robin format included four 12-minute games and an overtime with a target score of five.
American-born players once held an imperialistic grip on basketball, particularly during the Dream Team era – Team USA defeated opponents by an average score of 43.8 points at the 1992 Olympics. But the gap between US and international players is closing each year. During the 2024 Paris Olympics, Team USA needed herculean efforts by LeBron James and Steph Curry to hold off France in the final minutes of the gold-medal game. And in the NBA, international players have won every MVP award since 2018, with James Harden the last American-born player to capture the league’s most coveted individual prize.
“The conversation that the international players caught up to us, the American players hear that,” McGrady said prior to Sunday’s tip-off. “It’s not the platform. It’s not the format. It’s the players that change that. So I think mixing it up like this, the world’s going to set the tone, and we’re going to see competitive basketball.”
Kevin Durant struck a more conciliatory tone on Saturday. He said that some All-Star games were just as lethargic decades ago.
“I just feel like fans and the media need something to complain about,” Durant said. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, to be honest … The last couple of weeks, I’ve watched the intro and at least the first quarter of every All-Star Game from, like, the 70s up until the late 90s. I wanted to see what the big deal was and if it was really that much intensity, like an [NBA finals] Game 7. The intensity the older generation has been talking about, I don’t know if I’ve seen it.”
During last year’s game, Victor Wembanyama appeared upset after his teammate Alperen Sengun allowed Jayson Tatum to throw down an uncontested game-winning dunk. Before this year’s game, the Frenchman said that the USA v World format should encourage the All-Stars to play for pride.
“We’ve seen that many of the best players have been increasingly foreign players,” Wembanyama said. “There is some pride on that side. I guess there is pride on the American side, which is normal. So I think anything that gets you closer to representing your country brings up pride.”
On Sunday, Wembanyama set the tone early by scoring the first seven points for Team World and finishing with a combined stat line of 33 points, eight rebounds, and three blocks in two games. His show of effort inspired other players to pick up the intensity, most notably, the 2026 NBA All-Star Game MVP, Anthony Edwards.
“Wemby set the tone, and it woke me up for sure,” Edwards said after Sunday’s games. “It was definitely competitive with all three teams. I feel like the old heads [Team Stripes] played hard too. They were playing really good defense.”
From tip-off of the first game, this year’s All-Star Game (or, technically, games) had a different energy. Players from Team Stars and Team World contested shots on defense, and embraced motion offense instead of a reliance on one-on-one scoring. In the final, the youthful Team Stars dismantled Team Stripes by a score of 41-25, led by Edwards, who finished with 32 points in three games.
Despite the rout, the players competed with purpose, and the league may have finally fixed a long-standing problem.
“I think it was definitely a step up in the competitive department compared to last season,” Durant said after the final game. “Hopefully, we just build upon this, and the weekend becomes more and more competitive. And the fans start to enjoy it more and more.”
