The stars were out for NBA All-Star Weekend right here in Los Angeles. According to, the U.S. TV viewership topped 46 million across the weekend, the highest in 24 years and more than triple last year’s audience. Commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA made several format changes to this year’s All-Star action, but were they really the catalyst for the massive ratings boost?
Friday: The Celebrity All-Star Game and the Rising Stars Tournament
The celebrity game featured its typical assortment of actors, musicians, YouTubers and, to many fans’ surprise, active pro basketball players. Tacko Fall, who currently plays in the Canadian Basketball Association, Jeremy Lin, NBA Insider Shams Charania and others put on an entertaining but overall unspectacular exhibition match.
In line with recent years, the Rising Stars showcase featured top rookies, sophomores and G League players in a mini-tournament; Rookie of the Year contender V.J. Edgecombe won MVP after leading his team to a one-point championship victory over Team Melo, a squad that included Cooper Flagg, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, among others.
Saturday: 3-Point Contest, Dunk Contest and Shooting Stars Challenge
Nothing exceptionally new was added to these contests, and for what it’s worth, I doubt the spike in viewership was due to anything that happened on this particular day.
The 3-point contest was won by Damian Lillard, an unlikely hero as the veteran guard has yet to play a single regular-season game for the Blazers this year, following an Achilles injury in the 2025 playoffs. This win means Lillard joins Larry Bird and Craig Hodges as the event’s only three-time winners. Devin Booker put up a fair effort in the final round, but ultimately fell two short of Lillard’s 29-point score.
Let’s not sugarcoat anything, the Dunk Contest was an unequivocal fail. At points throughout the season, fans were excited by the possibility of stars like Ja Morant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Zach LaVine participating in the event, after the players expressed their interest on social media. To none of a seasoned NBA fan’s surprise, not a single one of those stars showed up. Fans watched Carter Bryant, Jaxson Hayes, Keshad Johnson and Jase Richardson compete with a clear lack of preparation, or care, for that matter. Johnson ended up taking home the victory, and at the very least, the fans were given some entertaining lowlights (Jaxson Hayes’ free-throw line dunk — except he took off five feet from the basket).
The Shooting Stars contest was good fun, with Team Cameron (referencing legendary Duke basketball arena Cameron Indoor), made up of former Duke players Kon Knueppel, Jalen Johnson and Corey Maggette taking down Team Knicks, featuring current and former New York stars Karl-Anthony Towns, Jalen Brunson and Allan Houston.
Sunday: The All-Star Tournament
This year, the NBA replaced the traditional two-team matchup with a new USA vs. World round-robin tournament. Team USA was split into two sides, with younger players on Team Stars and veterans on Team Stripes.
The player pool had no shortage of talent, as always, but it wasn’t just their star factor that drew viewers to the broadcast.
The new format featured shorter, 12-minute games, which did wonders for improving effort from the athletes. Even in years past, it could be seen that in the last few minutes of every All-Star Game, the intensity would pick up slightly. By shortening the matches, players showed more of that crunch-time will to win.
Even so, the overarching moral of the story for me was that the players who wanted to play played, and those who didn’t — did not. From the opening tip, it was clear that Luka Dončić and Nikola Jokić weren’t there to put much effort into the games, and after a short (and rather poor-quality) 8-minute stint, they both subbed out and did not return for the rest of the night.
It was equally clear that the eventual All-Star MVP Anthony Edwards and French superstar Victor Wembanyama cared more about the outcome of their matches than most of the rest of the players put together. As the pair put up highlight after highlight, including some on the defensive end, and were not afraid to show their emotions as games went, or did not go their way.
Indeed, their efforts did not go unnoticed, as the resulting media fanfare was mostly filled with content surrounding the two young stars. Ultimately, it was this duo’s intrinsic determination and willingness to exert some effort at the Intuit Dome this weekend that created the most memorable and engaging moments for fans, as opposed to anything the NBA chose to implement.
The moral of the story is that as much as the league can tinker with the framework of All-Star Weekend, if the players simply don’t want to be there, it will be unwatchable. A culture shift on the athlete side of things is needed to create real change.
Take a look at Unrivaled’s 2026 1-on-1 Championship, a single-elimination event featuring top WNBA stars that happened concurrently with NBA All-Star Weekend.
Fans watched Chelsea Gray, Breanna Stewart and Paige Bueckers crash into one another, be physical and celebrate wildly while battling it out for a grand prize of $200,000, raving about it on social media afterward.
They did so because even though WNBA stars are still much less popular than their NBA counterparts at the moment, seeing the best athletes in a sport put their absolute all into competing against one another will always be entertaining.
On the bright side, as someone who played basketball all throughout my life, I can say with confidence that athletes are pack animals, and that we often look to the most talented of our peers for guidance.
If Edwards and Wembanyama — two of the youngest rising superstars and the possible new faces of a post-LeBron league — are any indication, perhaps a much needed change in attitude among NBA players is not as far away as we think.