NBA once more left searching for options after uncompetitive All-Star Sport

INDIANAPOLIS — After months of stressing the significance of getting a extra aggressive product on the court docket for this weekend’s All-Star Sport, NBA commissioner Adam Silver doubled down on that entrance Saturday evening, declaring, “I feel we will see sport” within the NBA’s annual midseason showcase at Gainbridge Fieldhouse on Sunday.

However after the 73rd All-Star Sport appeared precisely like final yr’s lackluster efficiency in Salt Lake Metropolis — with the Japanese Convention setting the all-time scoring report by changing into the primary workforce to surpass 200 factors in what was finally a 211-186 victory over the Western Convention, Silver’s annoyance at what befell was clearly on show.

“And to the Japanese Convention All-Stars, you scored essentially the most factors,” Silver stated flatly. “Nicely … congratulations.”

It was a becoming finish to a night that did nothing to cease the discussions over what the way forward for the NBA’s marquee midseason occasion ought to seem like transferring ahead. The NBA threw its weight behind making this sport a precedence for its gamers all season, with each Silver and Corridor of Famer Joe Dumars, the NBA’s government vp and head of basketball operations, repeatedly saying that getting extra effort out of the All-Stars was a precedence.

As a substitute, it was one other sport with nearly no protection and with little to no life contained in the constructing — to the purpose that the Los Angeles Lakers’ Anthony Davis stated his most memorable second was when the hype groups from the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers went via their dunk routines between the third and fourth quarters.

“I feel the perfect [moment], we had been speaking about it, was the Bulls and the Pacers dunkers,” Davis stated. “With the trampoline? They had been very, very spectacular.”

And, in the end, Sunday’s sport left issues in the very same place they had been in a yr in the past: with the NBA throwing up its arms concerning the truth this weekend, one of many tentpole occasions on its calendar, ended with a thud, and the gamers all however universally admitting that whereas they sympathize with efforts to enhance the occasion, it isn’t so simple as simply deciding to play just a little more durable.

“I feel it is one thing we have to work out,” stated Lakers star LeBron James, who set a brand new report together with his twentieth All-Star Sport look Sunday evening however did not play within the second half as he manages a balky left ankle. “Clearly from a participant’s perspective, it is enjoyable to stand up and down. However on the finish of the day, our aggressive nature do not wish to have free-flowing scoring like that.

“However I feel the nice factor that got here out of tonight was not one of the gamers had been injured, and everyone got here out unscathed or how they had been earlier than the sport began. So it is a deeper dialog.”

“Clearly the followers and the league and everyone desires to be aggressive, however then you definitely additionally as gamers take into consideration attempting to not get harm,” Davis stated. “Clearly accidents are part of the sport, and nobody desires to get harm within the All-Star Sport. … All these guys listed here are very precious to their groups. So it is some combined feelings about it. You attempt to go on the market and compete just a little bit and never simply be a spotlight present. However on the similar time, do you guys actually need to see any individual taking place for a dunk and any individual going to contest it and, God forbid, one thing occurs within the All-Star Sport when it might have been averted?”

Then there was Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards, who admitted he wasn’t enthusiastic about enjoying all that tough in an All-Star Sport, interval.

“For me, it is an All-Star Sport, so I’ll by no means take a look at it as being tremendous aggressive,” he stated. “It is all the time enjoyable. I do not know what they’ll do to make it extra aggressive. I do not know. I feel everybody seems to be at it … it is a break, so I do not suppose everybody desires to return right here and compete.”

That has been obvious in recent times — a pattern that isn’t remoted to the NBA, because the NHL, the NFL and MLB have all gone via radical adjustments to their very own all-star occasions throughout the previous decade or so in an effort to attempt to add some spice and competitors to them.

The NBA, although, was definitely louder than any of these leagues concerning the significance of that altering — with no another so than Silver himself.

And, within the wake of one other failed try to extend the competitors within the All-Star Sport, it is unclear what path he and the league will take from right here.

“There have been positively some [discussions about the game being more competitive],” Boston Celtics ahead Jaylen Brown stated. “I am unsure how profitable that was, however there was positively some discussions. I suppose guys are attempting to determine how to try this similtaneously having enjoyable, being protected, being injury-free.

“I suppose extra options must be needed to determine that out”