Welcome back to the Deep Dive. It is Wednesday,
February 18th, 2026. And if you're anything like
us, you are probably still trying to process
what exactly we just witnessed over the weekend.
I think process is the right word. Yeah. I feel
like I need a flowchart, like a full -on conspiracy
board with red string just to explain the last
48 hours of basketball. It was definitely...
Yeah. a lot spectacle feels like the right word
but i'm not even sure that does it justice it
was almost overwhelming right we're fresh off
the 2026 nba all -star game or i should say the
all -star tournament which was held at the brand
new Intuit Dome in Inglewood. A beautiful building,
by the way. Incredible. And just to set the record
straight for anyone who maybe got lost in all
the chaos, the USA Stars defeated the USA Stripes
in the championship game. Which, and let's be
honest about this, was maybe a little bit of
an anticlimax given the buildup. Huge anticlimax.
Everyone, I mean everyone, wanted to see that
USA versus World Final. That was the narrative.
Exactly. We spent... months, maybe the better
part of a year, debating the world champion title,
looking at the rosters, hyping up this this clash
of civilizations. Right. And we end up with what
felt like an intra squad scrimmage for the actual
trophy. But I will say. Anthony Edwards taking
home the MVP felt right. Oh, absolutely. He was
the one guy who consistently played like he actually
cared, which is, you know, half the battle in
these things. More than half the battle. He really
did bring that competitive spark, and that's
the one thing the league is always, always chasing
with this event. But here's the thing that really
struck me. We were watching the game, and you're
seeing the new format, the three teams, the round
-robin bracket, the confusing point differential.
It was a little confusing, yeah. And it hit me.
Most people... They tune in for the dunks. They
tune in to see the stars in cool shoes, to see
the halftime show. But I really don't think many
people actually know why we even have this game
in the first place. Or that the entire concept,
this whole massive weekend, was basically born
out of a huge sport -threatening scandal. Right.
Most fans just assume it's always been this way,
this grand celebration of basketball greatness.
But the origin story is it's actually pretty
dark. It is. It's a story of desperation, really.
And beyond that, I don't think people appreciate
why the format keeps changing every five minutes.
I mean, think about it. We went from the classic
East versus West for decades. Then all of a sudden,
it's captains drafting teams on TV. Playground
style. Then we get the Elam ending, which was
amazing. Then last year, it was teams named after
the Inside the NBA crew. Which is interesting.
And now this USA versus world tournament bracket,
it feels like the league is constantly tinkering
almost, I don't know, desperately. They are.
And that's because to really understand this
event, you have to understand its DNA. It has
always been an experiment. It has always been
a reaction to whatever was happening in the league
at that specific moment. Ah, so every format
change tells a story. Exactly. Every rule change,
every tweak to the voting, every new format tells
you something important about where the NBA was
at that point in its history. It's a barometer
for the league. OK, so that's our mission today.
We are going to peel back the layers of the NBA's
midseason spectacle. We are not just going to
recap the weekend. We are going to trace this
whole beast all the way back to its desperate
origins in 1951. All the way back. We'll walk
through the evolution of the format, the good,
the bad, and the very ugly. We'll unpack the
weird little rules like the Riley rule or the
death of the center position on the ballot. And
finally, we'll look at the culture of the event
itself. And honestly, I think that journey from
1951 to what we just saw in 2026 tells you almost
everything you need to know about how the NBA
itself has changed. It's a perfect microcosm
of the league's entire history. Okay, so let's
start at the beginning, part one. the desperate
origins. You mentioned a scandal. And when you
say scandal, we're not talking about a player
tweeting something controversial. No, no, no.
Not even close. We're talking about something
that almost killed the sport of basketball in
the public eye. We have to go back to the early
1950s. And to really get this, you have to strip
away everything you know about the modern NBA.
Forget the billion -dollar TV deals. Forget the
global icons. Forget Nike contracts. Whoa, wait.
This is not the league we know today. Not at
all. The NBA was a struggling sort of regional
league that was barely breaking even. But the
biggest cloud hanging over the entire sport of
basketball wasn't even about the pros. It was
about the college game. The point shaving scandal.
The point shaving scandal. And we really need
to pause on just how massive this was. In 1950,
1951, college basketball was king. Bigger than
the pros. Oh, much bigger. The center of the
basketball universe was New York City and Madison
Square Garden. And the kings of that universe
were CCNY, the City College of New York. This
is the team that won both the NCAA and NIT tournaments
in the same year, right? A historic achievement.
Exactly. They pulled off the double Grand Slam.
It's the only time it's ever happened. These
guys were heroes in New York. They were celebrities.
And then the news broke. The arrest. They, along
with players from several other prominent schools,
were arrested for taking money from bookies and
mobsters to shave points. And shaving points,
just to be clear for anyone who doesn't know,
doesn't mean losing the game. No, that's the
insidious part. It means making sure your team
wins, but by less than the point spread. So if
the spread is 10 points, you make sure you only
win by eight. It's almost impossible for a casual
fan to detect. Which makes even more damaging
to public trust. Absolutely. And this wasn't
just a few bad apples. It was systemic. The fallout
was nuclear. It completely shattered the public's
faith in the sport. It effectively killed the
reputation of college basketball in New York
for a generation. It did. And the problem for
the NBA was that the public didn't really distinguish
between college basketball and pro basketball.
They just saw basketball. They just saw basketball
and thought. They thought, why should I pay my
hard -earned money to watch this? The outcome
is probably determined by some guy in a smoke
-filled back room. So Maurice Podoloff, the NBA
president at the time, is sitting in his office,
and he's not just worried about ticket sales
for next Tuesday's game. He's worried about the
existential legitimacy of the entire sport. He's
worried the whole enterprise could just collapse.
So the NBA needed a PR win, and they needed it
bad. They had to do something, anything, to regain
public attention and prove that professional
basketball was still a premier entertainment
product, and more importantly, an honest one.
Right. They needed a good story. They needed
a distraction. So who are the brains behind this
whole operation? Because usually these big ideas
start in a boardroom with 20 consultants and
a PowerPoint presentation. This was much smaller,
much more of a Hail Mary. You essentially had
three key players. You had Maurice Podoloff,
the president. You had a man named Haskell Cullen.
who is the NBA's publicity director. And then
you had Walter A. Brown, the owner of the Boston
Celtics. OK, so the league office and a very
important owner. Right. And Haskell Cohen is
really the one who gets the ball rolling. He
looked over at Major League Baseball and he saw
how incredibly successful their all -star game
was. Which had been around for a while at that
point. Since 1933. It was a huge, established,
midsummer classic. Cohen suggested an exhibition
game featuring the league's best players. He
basically said, if baseball can do it, why can't
we? And I'm guessing everyone in the room just
immediately loved the idea. Because in hindsight,
it seems like such a no -brainer. Put all your
best guys on the floor, throw the ball up, and
print money. Not at all. That's the most fascinating
part of the story. Most people... including the
president, Podolov, were incredibly skeptical.
They were pessimistic. They didn't think anyone
would come. Why? What was the logic there? Podolov
literally told him, nobody wants to see these
guys play for nothing. The assumption was that
without the integrity of a league standing, which,
again, fans already doubted because of the scandals,
the product was worthless. Why would fans pay
money to watch a game that didn't count? It's
a fair question, I guess, from their perspective
at the time. Especially when you're fighting
for every dollar. So the idea was dead in the
water. Until Walter Brown stepped up. A Celtics
owner. Walter Brown was the catalyst. He believed
in the idea. He stepped up and said, I'll host
it. He offered to hold the very first game at
the Boston Garden on March 10, 1951. But then
he went even further. What'd he do? He told the
league he would personally cover all the expenses.
The travel for the players, the lodging, the
promotion, everything. Wow. And not just the
expenses. He promised to cover any potential
losses incurred from the game. It was a massive
financial gamble on his part. So he was basically
saying, if this thing is a total disaster and
we lose money, the check comes out of my pocket,
not the league's. Precisely. He was ensuring
the league's reputation with his own bank account.
He put his own wallet on the line to prove this
concept could work. That is a true put your money
where your mouth is moment. It's almost impossible
to imagine an owner today doing that without
a whole team of analysts guaranteeing a 10 to
1 return on investment. It's a different world.
So March 2, 1951, the first game happens, Boston
Garden. What was the result on the court? Well,
it was a classic format right from the jump.
Eastern All -Stars versus the Western All -Stars.
The East won 111 to 94. Fittingly, since the
game was in Boston, Celtic took home the first
ever MVP award, Ed McCauley. A hometown hero.
Perfect. But the score, as you said, probably
mattered a lot less than the gate receipts, right?
Did people actually show up or was Podoloff right
to be skeptical? That was the aha moment. Yeah.
The big reveal. The attendance was 10 ,094. 10
,000. Now, to you and me in 2026, where we just
saw the game in a dome with 18 ,000 people and
millions watching around the world, that might
sound... You know, a decent crowd. Right. It
doesn't sound world shattering. But you have
to contextualize it. Right. The season average
attendance for a regular season NBA game at that
time was only about 3 ,500 people. OK, wait.
So they almost tripled the average attendance
for a single exhibition game. Exactly. It was
a massive, unqualified success. It proved that
people. did want to see the stars. Regardless
of the stakes, it completely shifted the trajectory
of the league. It validated the whole idea. It
turned a public relations crisis into a foundational
tradition. Without that gamble by Walter Brown,
we might not be sitting here talking about the
2026 tournament today. It proved that the spectacle
of basketball had a value all its own, independent
of the championship race. It's just wild to think
that all the glitz and glamour we see now, the
pyrotechnics, the celebrity halftime shows, the
millions and millions of dollars, it all started
because a guy in Boston promised to cover the
losses just to get people to trust the sport
of basketball again. It really is. And that initial
success, it's cemented the format for decades.
For a very long time, it was simple. It was East
versus West. The best from one side of the country
against the best from the other. Which brings
us right into part two, the evolution of the
game. Because for a long, long time, East versus
West wasn't just a format. It was an identity.
It was a real rivalry. From 1951 all the way
until 2017, that was the standard. And for most
of that history, the East actually dominated
that rivalry. Really? That surprises me. I feel
like... For my entire adult life, at least, the
West has been so strong. You think about the
Warriors dynasty, the Lakers with Kobe and Shaq,
the Duncan era Spurs. It just feels like the
West has been the power conference for so long.
They're a perfect example of recency bias at
work. If you look at the entire East versus West
era, the East holds the all -time lead with 38
wins against just 29 losses. Huh. Okay. So for
a long time, they each really ran things. But
eventually, a new problem emerged with the format.
It wasn't an external scandal this time. It was
the product itself on the court. Right. Let me
guess. The defense just disappeared. Completely.
Vanished. Over time, the game became purely about
flashy dunks, alley -oops, and ridiculously inflated
scores. The competitive edge that existed in
those early days where players actually felt
conference pride and wanted to beat the other
guys for bragging rights, it just eroded. It
became a layup line. A very, very expensive layup
line. I remember those games in the mid -2010s.
The final scores were getting absolutely ridiculous.
Like 196 to 173. It looked like a video game
on rookie mode with the sliders all the way up.
Guys were literally moving out of each other's
way to let people dunk. There was no resistance.
It stopped looking like a basketball game and
started looking more like a glorified warm -up
drill. Precisely. And the fans started complaining.
You could hear it in the discourse, see it on
social media. The ratings started to dip. The
prestige of being an all -star was fading because
the game itself looked like a joke. So the league
had to do something. They did. So in October
2017, they decided to blow it all up. They announced
the end of the East versus West era. Starting
with the 2018 game, they introduced the Captains
in Draft era. I have to admit, I actually loved
this format. You take the top vote getter from
each conference, you make them captains, and
you let them pick their teams playground style
right there on TV. It felt like recess. It added
this great layer of personal intrigue. You know,
who picked whom, who got picked last. It was
drama. And the key mechanic was that they could
draft from the entire pool of all -stars, regardless
of conference. Which broke down all those old
geographical barriers. Totally. And that led
to some really crazy roster constructions that
you would never have seen under the old system.
And the most notable moment of that era has to
be the very first game, 2018. Team LeBron versus
Team Steven. Yep. Because of that draft format,
Team Steven managed to draft four players from
a single team, the Golden State Warriors. Four
players from one team. That has to be a record,
right? It tied the record, actually. It had happened
a couple of times before, way back in 1962 with
both the Celtics and the Lakers. But seeing four
Warriors on the same All -Star squad in the modern
era really highlighted the super team dynamic
we were in. I mean, you had Steph Curry, Kevin
Durant, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green all
on the same All -Star team. It was basically
the Warriors' starting lineup plus one. It was.
But even with the draft, which fixed the roster
problem, the end of the games could still be
a bit, well, anticlimactic. For sure. You know,
if one team was up by 15 with two minutes left,
it was still just guys running out the clock.
The fourth quarter often felt like a formality.
Which leads us to maybe the single most significant
innovation in recent sports history, and I don't
think that's an exaggeration, the Elam ending.
2020. The Kobe Bryant tribute. This was such
a powerful moment. It was a pivotal moment for
the league. Yeah. Kobe had tragically passed
away just a month prior to the 2020 game in Chicago.
The entire basketball world was just reeling
just in mourning. And the league wanted to honor
him, but they also desperately wanted to fix
this fourth quarter problem. So they introduced
the Elam ending. OK, so for those who might have
forgotten how this works, because, again, we've
already changed format since then, break down
the Elam ending for us, because on paper, it
sounds really confusing. You're telling me you
just turn off the clock. It sounds totally counterintuitive,
but it's brilliant in its simplicity. So the
game clock is turned off for the entire fourth
quarter. Instead of playing for a set amount
of time, you are playing to a target score. Okay.
And to honor Kobe, they set that target score
by taking the leading team score after three
quarters and adding 24 points for Kobe's number.
The first team to hit that target score wins
the game. And the psychology of that is just
fascinating because it forces a game -winning
shot every single time. There's no other way
to win. You can't just dribble out the clock.
Exactly. Think about a normal basketball game.
If you're down by 10 with a minute left, what
do you do? You foul. You stop the clock. You
intentionally foul. You stop the game. You turn
it into a free show contest. It's slow. It's
boring. It's terrible TV. Or in an all -star
game, if you're up by 20, you just stop trying.
You let the clock bleed out. The ELAM ending
removes the bleed out option. You cannot win
by existing. You have to win by scoring. And
the result in 2020 was electric. I remember watching
that. I was on the edge of my seat. You had the
best players in the world, LeBron, Giannis, Kawhi,
Chris Paul, suddenly realizing, wait a minute,
I can't just chill. If I don't get a stop right
now, we lose. That 2020 game is the perfect case
study. It created this incredible urgency. Players
were actually playing defense. They were drawing
charges. We saw Kyle Lowry in an exhibition game
step in and take a charge against Kawhi Leonard
in a clutch moment. A charge! In the All -Star
game, I remember seeing that play and just thinking,
OK, this works. That singular play proved the
format worked. It reintroduced risk and consequence.
And arguments with the refs. You saw real, genuine
intensity. Now, that game did end with an Anthony
Davis walk -off free throw, which was a little
anticlimactic as a final play. Yeah, a little
bit. But the possessions leading up to it were
some of the most competitive, compelling All
-Star minutes we had seen in decades. It proved
that if you change the incentives... The players
will absolutely compete. It really, really felt
like they had finally cracked the code. But the
NBA never sits still. They kept tinkering. And
that brings us to the last two years, the era
of the tournament experiments. Right. We saw
a brief. and kind of unpopular return to East
versus West. But then in 2025, they went completely
off the board with the inside the NBA format.
That was wild. A four -team mini tournament.
I remember the announcement and thinking, what
are they doing? It was 24 All -Stars plus some
of the top rising stars. And they had four teams
named after the TV analysts. Team Shaq, Team
Chuck, Team Kenny, and Team Candace Parker. I
remember that. And Shaq's team, Shaq's OGs ended
up winning the whole thing. They did. They beat
Candice's Rising Stars and Chuck's Global Stars.
It was fun. You know, it's the novelty. But it
felt a bit like a TV show gimmick. It felt less
like a major sporting event and more like a reality
show challenge. I think that's a perfect way
to put it. What brings us to this year, the 2026
format we just witnessed here in Inglewood. The
USA versus World Tournament. And this format
really reflects the changing landscape of the
league. The talent pool is so global now, so
deep, that a single world team isn't just a novelty.
It's a legitimate powerhouse. So the format was
three teams in total, one world team with eight
of the best international players, and then two
separate U .S. teams, 16 American players divided
into USA Stars and USA Stripes. Very interesting
setup. We have to talk about how that final bracket
played out. We went into the weekend so hyped
for USA versus the world. The narrative was set.
The world team has multiple MVPs, Luka, Giannis,
Jokic, Wemby. The expectation was a coronation
of the international game. And mathematically,
you could argue the world team was at a disadvantage
from the start one team against two USA squads.
But the shock wasn't the math. It was the on
-court chemistry, or lack thereof. The bracket
was a little complex. It was a round robin. Game
one was team A versus team B. Game two was the
winner of game one versus team C. And game three
was the loser of game one versus team C. Right.
It was a three -game round robin to determine
the two finalists and looking at the results.
The first game, USA Stars beat Team World in
overtime. It was a thriller. That was the game
of the weekend by far. No question. Then USA
Stripes beat USA Stars. And the final round robin
game, USA Stripes beat Team World. So both USA
teams beat the world team and made the final.
Exactly. The championship game was USA Stars
versus USA Stripes. And the Stars, led by Anthony
Edwards, just took it to them, 47 to 21. A bit
of a blowout in the final, but those round -robin
games were tight. It's just so interesting that
with all the talk of international dominance,
the final ended up being an all -American affair.
Well, again, the USA had two teams, so the odds
were slightly in their favor. But I think it
also shows the depth of U .S. talent is still
absolutely incredible. That USA Stars squad,
the Anthony Edwards team, they plated the chip
on their shoulder we haven't seen in years. It
really felt like a direct response to all the
world champion discourse from the last Olympics
and World Cup. I think it was. By the time they
got to that all -American final, the statement
had been made. But it does bring us to this weird
place. We now have a tournament format that is
clearly trying to manufacture the intensity of
the playoffs because the old exhibition model
is officially dead. And that's the real key takeaway
from all these format changes, isn't it? The
league realized that the word exhibition implies
meaningless. Exactly. But tournament implies
stakes. Even if the prize money isn't life -changing
for these guys, the format itself, with a bracket
and a final, forces a winner and a loser in a
much more direct and compelling way. Okay, let's
unpack how these guys actually get there in the
first place. Because you can have all the fancy
formats you want, but if you don't pick the right
players, it doesn't matter one bit. This brings
us to part three, the mechanics of selection.
Right. And the voting process is something the
NBA takes very, very seriously. And it has evolved
significantly over the years. It used to be a
popularity contest, pure and simple. It used
to just be the fans stuffing ballot boxes at
the arena, right? For a very long time, yes.
But that led to some questionable results. So
in 2017, they changed the weighting. Now, the
fan vote accounts for 50 percent. The player
vote accounts for 25 percent. And the media vote
accounts for the final 25 percent. That player
vote is always so interesting to look at when
the results come out. You can really see some
of the petty rivalries come out in the voting.
Oh, you do. You see guys leaving their sworn
enemies off the ballot entirely or voting for
their own teammates who, you know, clearly don't
deserve it. You do see that. But it also balances
out the pure popularity contest aspect of the
fan vote. You remember those years where a guy
like Zaza Pachuli almost became a starter just
because of a coordinated Internet campaign from
his home country? I do. It was a running joke
for a while. The current waiting system prevents
those kinds of anomalies from actually taking
a roster spot from a more deserving star. The
players and media act as a check and balance.
And speaking of the fan vote, the accessibility
has changed so much. Hugely. Since 2003, the
official ballots have been offered in English,
Spanish and Chinese. That was a massive step
in acknowledging the league's global fan base,
particularly in China, with Yao Ming's rise.
The sheer volume of votes coming from overseas
now must be staggering. It is. It has a real
impact on who the starters are. Now, one of the
biggest changes in who gets voted for has been
the treatment of positions. I remember growing
up, you had to pick a center. It was a required
field on the ballot. The death of the center,
as it's often called. Prior to 2013, the ballot
was very strict. Two forwards, two guards and
one center. But the game itself was changing.
Small ball. Teams started playing small ball.
The traditional back to the basket center, the
Patrick Ewing or Shaq type was fading away. More
teams were using versatile, shooting big men.
So they changed the ballot to reflect that. In
2013, they eliminated the center designation
entirely. Fans started voting for three generic.
front court players. It didn't matter if there
were three small forwards or three power forwards.
And in 2026, what was the rule for this year's
game? For the first time ever, it was completely
positionless. The voting for this year's game,
you just picked your best players. If you thought
the five best players in the conference were
all point guards, so be it. You could vote for
them. That is a huge, huge shift, and it really
does mirror how the actual game is played now.
You have savvy footers like Wemby bringing the
ball up the court and shooting step -back threes.
The distinction between a guard and a center
is blurrier than it has ever been. Exactly. The
ballot is just finally catching up to the reality
of the sport. But what about the coaches? Because
at the end of the day, someone has to manage
all these egos. Someone has to tell Luca to sub
out for a minute. The coaching selection is generally
pretty simple. The head coaches of the teams
with the best record in each conference get to
lead the All -Stars. But there's a very specific
and interesting rule attached to it called the
Riley Rule. I love this rule. It sounds like
the title of a 1980s action movie. The Riley
Rule. It's named, as you might guess, after Pat
Riley, the legendary Lakers coach. In the 1980s,
the Showtime Lakers were so utterly dominant
that Riley earned the right to coach the Western
Conference team eight times in nine seasons.
between 1982 and 1990. Wait, eight times in nine
years? That's absurd dominance. He was basically
the permanent all -star coach for a decade. Yes,
and the league and probably some of the other
coaches basically said, okay, this is getting
a little boring. We need to give some other guys
a chance. So they instituted the rule. Which
is? A coach cannot be selected in two consecutive
years. If your team has the best record again
the next year, the honor automatically goes to
the coach of the team. with the second best record.
I love that. It's basically the Pat Riley was
too good for his own good rule. It forces variety.
It does. It also spreads the burden because,
frankly, not every coach wants to spend their
only midseason break babysitting a bunch of superstars
in a different city. That's a good point. So
we have the starters who are voted in. We have
the coaches selected by the Riley rule. How are
the reserves picked? The rest of the team. The
head coaches from around the league pick the
reserves. But, and this is a very key detail,
they cannot vote for their own players. Ah, so
that prevents any obvious bias. You can't just
pick your own sixth man to try and get him a
contract bonus. Correct. Each coach selects two
guards, three frontcourt players, and two wildcards
players of any position. This part of the process
is where the real debates and snubs happen. Right.
This is where you see the coaches' favorite kind
of players maybe get rewarded, the defensive
grinders, the high IQ guys who don't put up flashy
numbers, but coaches love. Exactly. They get
rewarded over the flashy scorers who don't play
a lick of defense. And what happens when someone
gets hurt? Because it feels like that happens
every single year. We always have the injury
replacement drama. The commissioner, Adam Silver,
currently is the one who... selects the injury
replacement however there's an important nuance
here if a starter is injured the commissioner
picks the new player to be added to the roster
but the coach of the team is the one who decides
which of his existing players moves into the
starting lineup got it so the commissioner doesn't
get to name a starter Correct. The coach still
has control over the rotation and the starting
five. You don't want the commissioner's office
meddling in on -court lineup decisions. It makes
perfect sense. Okay, so we've covered the history,
the evolution of the format, and the nitty -gritty
of the selection process. But the All -Star Game
is so much more than just the basketball game
itself. It's a cultural event. It's a massive
party. It's where the league flexes its muscle.
Let's talk Part 4, Spectacle and Society. and
the venues themselves play a huge role in the
vibe of the entire weekend. We just mentioned
the Intuit Dome in Inglewood hosting 2026. This
is actually a really significant moment because
it's the first time the Clippers have hosted
the event individually. Right. They used to have
to co -host with the Lakers at Staples Center
or sorry, Crypto .com Arena, whatever we're calling
it this week. Exactly. So this was a massive
moment for the Clippers identity as a franchise.
Steve Ballmer built that arena specifically to
get out of the Lakers very long shadow. And hosting
the all -star game there is the ultimate we have
arrived. statement for them. But if we're talking
about venues and just pure scale, we have to
talk about the 2010 game. Oh, yeah. Cowboy Stadium
in Arlington, Texas. Everything is bigger in
Texas. And this was proof the NBA decided to
go as big as they possibly could. They held the
game in a massive football stadium and the attendance
record they set that night. is, I think, very
likely to stand for a very, very long time. How
many people were there? 108 ,713 attendees. That's
just mind -boggling for a basketball game. I
can't even picture it. Usually play in front
of, what, 20 ,000 people? Tops? It completely
shattered the previous basketball attendance
record, which was around 78 ,000 for a college
game. It turned the game into this. gladiator
arena spectacle. Now, let's be honest. The sight
lines for watching a basketball game were probably
terrible for most people. You must have needed
binoculars from the top deck. Oh, for sure. But
the energy, the scale of it, unmatched. It showed
that the NBA could command a Super Bowl -level
audience for its premier event. But the choice
of city isn't always just about who has the biggest,
newest arena. Sometimes it gets political. It
does. And the most prominent example of this
was the entire saga of the 2017 All -Star Game.
It was originally awarded to the city of Charlotte,
North Carolina. I remember this very clearly.
This is the HB2 controversy. Right. And this
is a really crucial moment in the league's modern
social history. The state of North Carolina passed
a law called House Bill 2, which became widely
known as the bathroom bill. Right. It limited
legal protections for LGBTQ individuals and specifically
targeted transgender persons regarding which
public bathrooms they could use. It became a
national cultural flashpoint. And the NBA took
a very hard stance. They didn't just issue a
vague press release and move on. Not at all.
They viewed the bill as discriminatory and completely
incompatible with the league's stated values
of inclusion and diversity. Adam Silver publicly
warned the state government that they would move
the game if the bill wasn't repealed. And North
Carolina didn't repeal it in time. They didn't.
So the NBA pulled the trigger. They took the
game away from Charlotte. They moved it to New
Orleans. Yes. And we have to really understand
the magnitude of that decision. The All -Star
game brings in, conservatively, around $100 million
in economic impact to a host city. Moving it
was a massive economic blow to Charlotte and
a very clear, very loud message from the league.
And eventually the bill was partially repealed
and the game did go back. Yes, it was. After
a partial repeal of the bill, the game did return
to Charlotte in 2019. But that whole sequence
of events showed that the All -Star Game is a
powerful piece of leverage. It's not just a game.
It's an economic engine that cities fight over.
And the NBA proved it was willing to weaponize
that engine to support its values. It's so fascinating
how a game that was invented to distract from
a gambling scandal, a game born out of a desperate
need for good PR, eventually became a tool for
social and political leverage. It really highlights
the league's evolution. and social responsibility.
It shows the confidence of the modern NBA. In
1951, they were practically begging for attention
and legitimacy. In 2017, they were dictating
terms to state governments. Incredible. Before
we wrap this all up, we have to touch on some
of the fun oddities and trivia. Because when
you throw this much talent together for a weekend,
weird little things are bound to happen. Oh yeah,
always. One of my favorite statistical quirks
is the Position swaps, we used to see. We talked
about how the ballot is positionless now, but
even before that, fans would just vote for the
best players regardless of position. Right. In
2007, for example, Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady
were both voted in as starters in the West. Both
are quintessential shooting guards. Naturally.
Two of the best scorers of that generation. But
you can't have two shooting guards start. Someone
had to play point guard. So Kobe, being Kobe,
just started the game at the one. It just shows
that when you have that much talent, traditional
positions kind of go out the window. You just
put the five best guys out there and tell them
to figure it out. And what about the uniforms?
I feel like the all -star uniforms are always
a huge topic of debate every single year. Always.
Traditionally, it was simple. The West wore red
and the East wore blue. It was clean. It was
classic. But there was this wonderfully chaotic
period from 1997 to 2002 where the players wore
their own team uniforms. Oh, I remember that.
It looked like a bag of Skittles just spilled
out onto the court. You had the Bulls red next
to the Celtics green next to the Lakers gold
next to the bright teal of the Hornets. It was
visual mass. It kind of hurt your eyes to watch.
But some fans absolutely loved it because you
could instantly identify which teams the players
represented. It was a celebration of the individual
franchises. Now, of course, we have special newly
designed jerseys every year. Which is obviously
a huge merchandising play. They need to sell
those jerseys to the fans. Exactly. It's all
about the revenue. And I heard that sometimes
players have to switch their jersey numbers for
the game. Yes. The best example is Patrick Ewing.
He was famously number 33 for the New York Knicks
his entire career. But one year, Larry Bird was
also on the Eastern Conference team. Bird, of
course, was also number 33. So who got the number?
Ewing, either out of respect. Or maybe because
Bird had seniority and three MVP trophies, switched
his number to three for the game. That's a deep
cut. I love that. It shows the unspoken hierarchy
that exists even among the superstars. Even a
Hall of Famer like Patrick Ewing has to bow to
Larry Legend. And we can't forget the halftime
shows. They really became a thing in the year
2000. That was the first real... big budget halftime
concert. Okay, who is the lineup? I'm curious
to see how well it's aged. They're ready for
this. It was Kenny Wayne Shepard, Mary J. Blige,
98 Degrees, Montel Jordan, Martina McBride, and
LL Cool J. That is the most year 2000 musical
lineup I have ever heard in my entire life. You
have a blues guitarist, R &B, a boy band, a country
star, and a rapper. It's a perfect time capsule.
It really captures the era. It was this attempt
to appeal to every single demographic all at
once. So let's zoom all the way out. We have
gone from the 1951 Boston Garden with 10 ,000
people and a nervous league president all the
way to the 2026 Intuit Dome with a three -team
global tournament, massive political leverage,
worldwide TV audiences, and Anthony Edwards holding
the MVP trophy. It has been quite a journey,
a 75 -year evolution. If we look at the big picture
here. What is the biggest takeaway from this
whole history? I think the biggest takeaway is
that the all -star game is and always has been
the NBA's laboratory. It started as a desperate
experiment to save the league's reputation. It
evolved to showcase the East versus West rivalry.
When that got stale and uncompetitive, they experimented
with drafts and the ELIM ending to try and fix
the competition level. And now with the tournament
format. And now with the tournament format, they're
experimenting with how to package the game for
a modern, global, short attention stand audience.
It's a living, breathing thing that adapts to
whatever the NBA needs it to be at that specific
moment in time. And it adapts to the players,
too. The move to positionless voting, the move
to officially include a world team, it's all
a reflection of the reality that basketball isn't
just an American game anymore, and it's not played
in rigid positional boxes anymore. Exactly. It's
a perfect mirror of the sports evolution. Well,
this year we saw the USA Stars win the title.
The Americans came out on top. But I do want
to leave our listeners with one final thought.
We just saw a USA versus world format where the
USA had two teams and the world had one. The
math, you could say, favored the home team. For
sure. But look at the talent pipeline. Look at
the best young players in the league. Wemby,
Luka, Giannis, Jokic, Shai. The list just goes
on and on. We are in the middle of a global explosion
of elite basketball talent. There's no doubt
about that. So my question is this. Are we approaching
an era where the world team becomes the dominant
dynasty in this event? Are we going to see a
future, maybe in the next five or ten years,
where the USA has to play the role of the underdog
in their own league's all -star game? That is
a very, very real possibility. And you know what?
If the world team starts winning consistently,
that might just be the next great rivalry that
saves the game all over again. How so? Imagine
an all -star game where Team USA is genuinely
desperate to win, not for a bonus check. but
for national pride to prove they still own the
sport they invented. I would watch that. That
sounds like real competition. A massive thank
you to everyone for listening. This has been
the deep dive into the evolution of the all -star
game. We will catch you on the next one. Thanks
for listening, everyone.