The NBA All-Star Game has yet again undergone drastic changes for the 2025 edition. The new format, which was announced in December, will feature a mini-tournament that see four teams competing over three games, with the winning team receiving the largest sum from the prize pool of money.

The 24 players selected to the NBA All-Star team were divided into three teams of eight, with the rosters selected by TNT commentators Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith. The fourth team will be the winning team from the Rising Stars championship, which features the top young NBA players and G League standouts. Games will be won by the first team to score 40 points.

The format, which is a change from the traditional Eastern Conference versus Western Conference, comes after All-Star game received heavy criticized and even deemed “unwatchable” by some. NBA commissioner Adam Silver believes the new format will make All-Star weekend entertaining again.

“I’ve talked to Steph [Curry] and many of the perennial All-Stars, none of them were proud of what you saw last year,” Silver said in the lead up to the game on KNBR. “I think they all recognize that the fans want to be entertained by the style of basketball they see on the floor. I’m hopeful for this year. We can get something that can be really fun and exciting for fans to watch.”

Silver doesn’t think the format changes will necessarily be permanent, and even believes that fans and players could call for a return to the old format within a few years.

“Things are also cyclical,” Silver said. “Now that we’ve moved to that format, it’s not unimaginable to me people in a few years people will be longing for the traditional format, and even the players will be saying, ‘let’s go back to East versus West.'”