The NBA continues to struggle with its All-Star Weekend format, and 2025 was another weekend of highs and lows for the league.
Friday night’s event features celebrity basketball and the Rising Stars Challenge. While it’s entertaining, watching streamer Kai Cenat try to play basketball is not.
Saturday’s events were actually interesting.
The Skills Challenge began with controversy as the Spurs duo of Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama were disqualified in the first round for not attempting a shot in the shooting part of the challenge. The teammates chucked the balls at the basket to save time, but were eventually DQed for the “cheat”.’
The finals featured a match-up between team Cavaliers (Evan Mobley and Donovan Mitchell) and team Warriors (Draymond Green and Moses Moody), with the former beating the latter despite the home crowd advantage for Green and Moody as Green failed to hit the chest passes in a timely fashion.
The three-point contest first saw the Warriors’ Buddy Hield light up the field for 31 points in the early round, tying teammate Stephy Curry’s record for most points in a round in competition history.
In the Finals, the Heats’ Tyler Herro held off a late charge from Hield, who lost by 1 point, 24-23.
Then came the Slam Dunk contest, which was headlined by 2x and defending champion, Matt McClung, who wowed the crowd all night.
The finals came down to the Orlando Magic G Leaguer McClung, who scored perfect 50s on his dunks, and Spurs rookie Stephon Castle.
Castle was great, but McClung was better, sealing the win with a dunk involving one person holding a ball on a spinning skateboard and another holding a ball on a ladder by the rim and McClung dunking both.
McClung scored perfect 50s on all four dunks and became the first player in Slam Dunk contest history to win three straight contests.
“It kind of feels like a blur,” McClung said. “It’s something I love doing. That’s where my creativity comes in. I genuinely love this contest and I love to dunk.”
The actual All-Star Game on Sunday felt strange as it had a new format with four teams playing games against each other to 40. The finals featured Shaq’s OGs vs Charles Barkley’s Global Stars, with Jayson Tatum winning it for the OGs and Steph Curry winning All-Star MVP.
The four-team tournament was clouded by the absences of LeBron James and Anthony Edwards due to injury, but overall the games were interesting and have potential for the future.
But the NBA still has work to due to make the all-around product better, so we’ll see what happens in 2026 when the game moves to NBC.
