The NBA is trying to shake up All-Star weekend.

Again.

With the 2025 All-Star game set to be played in San Francisco this February, the league is considering another tweak to make the Sunday spectacle more competitive and viewer-friendly.

According to a report from ESPN’s Shams Charania, the standard two-team matchup between all 24 selected All-Stars will go to the wayside — for now.

Instead of the traditional East versus West format, All-Star Sunday will reportedly be a four-team tournament with three total games played.

If approved by the league, there will be three All-Star teams, each comprised of eight players that are voted in as All-Stars for this season. The fourth team would be the winner of the Rising Stars challenge, which takes place on Friday, Feb. 14 in a tournament-style format. The Rising Stars team will be a collection of rookies, sophomores, and G-League players. While they will inevitably feel outmatched, part of the intrigue will be seeing if the younger talent pushes the NBA veterans and whether that sparks a fire under the All-Stars to prove a point.

Those four teams will square off in head-to-head matchups, with the winners advancing to the final game. Each of the games would have a ‘pickup style’ feel, with the first two matchups having a target score of 40 points. The final game between the two winners would be to 25 points.

The idea is simple. By reducing the game duration and creating a quicker product, it would help eliminate some of the All-Star fluff that makes the game unappealing to the old-fashioned audience — too many fastbreak dunks, defenders welcoming wide-open threes, and uncontested paint attacks.

In theory, a different format and faster objective will lead to more urgency and effort from the league’s brightest stars. These proposed changes come in the wake of Adam Silver voicing his displeasure with the last two All-Star events, unable to hide his frustration with the Eastern Conference eclipsing 200 points in a 48-minute game last year because of the non-existent defense.

Together, the NBA’s competition committee — featuring some players, coaches, team owners, front office executives, and Players Union members — met with the league to brainstorm possible tweaks over the last few months. Since the Golden State Warriors will host the 2025 event, veteran Stephen Curry was reportedly involved in the discussions.

What most people fail to understand, though, is a vast majority of the players don’t believe All-Star weekend needs fixing.

As the nature of NBA basketball has evolved, so has the All-Star event. Back in the late 2000s, when the game was slower and required less intensity on each possession, there were fewer injury risks. Players felt more comfortable replicating the effort and speed of a ‘normal’ game without fear of sustaining a long-term injury.

With the current pace of today’s league contributing to the higher rate of lower-body injuries, it simply doesn’t make sense for stars to risk their season during an exhibition event. The amount of back-to-backs teams (still) have to deal with doesn’t help matters, either.

The All-Star break isn’t supposed to be a war. A vast majority of the players view those days as their recovery period because the schedule isn’t exactly friendly.

Perhaps the league believes this new format will be a happy-medium between the old All-Star atmosphere and the relaxed environment we saw last February. At the same time, unless there’s real incentive attached to the tournament, consider me skeptical the players will turn it up a notch.

After last year’s All-Star weekend, Milwaukee Bucks star Damian Lillard acknowledged the game could be intensified, but held back from offering suggestions. He caught himself mid-answer, realizing maybe the priority shouldn’t be going full-force during the only break of an 82-game season.

“I think it could be more competitive,” he said. “In our game right now, it’s such a fast-paced game and we play a lot of games. I think the (league) also has more injuries than it’s ever had. Trying to manage your body and protect yourself, not getting injured and take away what you ultimately want to accomplish is what we prioritize.”

Lillard was named MVP of the 2024 All-Star Game after leading the Eastern Conference to a 211-186 victory. Needless to say, those point totals were viewed as repulsive by many in the league office, serving as the reason for another format change.

As Lillard mentioned, however, the players are never going to revert back to the old days of All-Star competition. You know, when Dwyane Wade gave Kobe Bryant a broken nose with a flagrant foul or when Bryant hounded LeBron James defensively the following year to secure a victory.

“I think something could be done about it,” Lillard added. “I’m not sure what. But there’s a way to make it a more competitive game. I don’t think anybody is going to play like it’s the playoffs, but there’s a way to get guys to come to the table and just play a more solid game.”

The collective sentiment you hear from players is that while certain tweaks can be made, nobody wants to revert back to the way things used to be.

So at this point, the league needs to let the nostalgia go.

It would be surprising if this new format dramatically changes the competition level of All-Star weekend. But every time the event is altered, the newness eventually wears off and it becomes stale again.

The sooner the NBA accepts that reality and redirects their energy into fixing other problems with the product, the better off everyone will be.