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The 2018 NBA All-Star Reformat Was A Huge Hit

Usually, doing NBA All-Star weekend, the highlights occur on Saturday night. Growing up, it was all about the Dunk Contest, but being someone who loves to shoot, the 3-Point Contest was dope too. On Sunday, it was cool to see some of your favorite stars competing against each other. As far as the game, it was an exhibition, no defense and they were just having fun. Trust me, that’s cool, but I love competition and seeing the best players in the world go at each other. This year, it seemed like the players wanted to change that, especially after the last few years of just bad basketball. Instead of the usual East vs. West concept, they went to a draft process. They all voted that whoever were the leading vote getter from each conference to draft a team. The leading vote getters were Lebron James and Steph Curry.

Team Lebron

-DeMarcus Cousins(Injured)

-Anthony Davis

-Kevin Durant

-Kyrie Irving

-LaMarcus Aldridge

-Bradley Beal

-Goran Dragic

-Andre Drummond

-Paul George

-Kevin Love(Injured)

-Victor Oladipo

-Kristaps Porzingis(Injured)

-Kemba Walker

-John Wall(Injured)

 

Team Steph

-Giannis Antetokounmpo

-Steph Curry

-DeMar DeRozen

-Joel Embiid

-James Harden

-Jimmy Butler

-Draymond Green

-Al Horford

-Damian Lillard

-Kyle Lowry

-Klay Thompson

-Karl Anthony-Towns

 

Since Lebron had the most votes, he had the chance to choose first. As you can see both teams were stacked and unfortunately, Team Lebron suffered keys injuries before the game. DeMarcus Cousins ruptured his Achilles and Kevin Love broke his hand. Kristaps Porzingis tore his ACL and John Wall had surgery on his injured knee. The players had more incentive to win this game as they doubled the amount of the winner’s purse to $100,000. In addition, each team will pick a charity where donations will support local efforts. The NBA will contribute $500,000 to the cause with Team Steph and Team LeBron each picking a charity. The winning team’s charity will receive a $350,000 donation, and the losing team’s charity will get $150,000. The increase in money for the winning team was due in part to the NBA’s and players’ wish to raise the competitiveness of the All-Star Game. The league started this renewed look following last year’s game in New Orleans in which the West beat the East 192-182.

https://youtu.be/RfWC4iDzpdI

The game started out like any other All-Star Game with a feeling out process. Both teams were running up and down the floor, but we got a few highlights to start things off. As the game wore on, they were more competitive and played defense. Towards the end of the first half, Team Lebron used a trap on Team Steph to force a pair of late turnovers. Once the second half began, it was more of the same thing as the 3rd quarter began to look more like a regular game. Both sides seem like they were running offensive sets and played a great amount of defense. At the end of the game, it came down to a defensive stop by Team Lebron on Steph and DeMar DeRozen to secure the win 148-145. My daughter and I was left impressed with the game and we think the NBA have finally solved their All-Star Game problem.

 

Did you check out the 2018 NBA All-Star Game? Did you enjoy it? What are your last thoughts about the game? Did you enjoy the new concept of the draft? Would you like to see the draft be televised or streamed live somehow next year? Leave a comment about anything related to the NBA All-Star Game below in the comments section.

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