NBA commissioner Adam Silver admits All-Star Weekend could require a bevy of further changes.
During an appearance Saturday on CNN with Charles Barkley and Gayle King, Silver acknowledged the lack of competitiveness in this year's event, which reverted to the traditional East versus West format and eliminated the target score feature. However, despite revealing the league will explore pitting the top Americans against the best international players, he conceded there may not be a proper fix to improve the overall effort level.
"I talked to a lot of players after the game, and I didn't get the sense that they went out there and said, 'Well, we know what the league wants and we know TNT wants us to play hard, but we're just not gonna do it,' Silver said.
He added: "Once they got out there, I think particularly young players, they see it as a midseason break, an opportunity to have fun, an opportunity to take a break from a very long season. ... When I saw the popularity of Steph (Curry) versus Sabrina (Ionescu), see what's happening in the women's game, we should just be looking to do different things and just make it a celebration of basketball.
"We're going to look at U.S. versus International. I just think maybe we're past that point where we're going to play a truly competitive game."
The NBA boss explained that the decision to return to the long-established All-Star Game model was an "opportunity to go, in essence, back to basketball," citing the history of the sport in Indiana as well as Larry Bird serving as an honorary captain for the weekend.
Both teams played minimal defense this year as they combined to score an All-Star Game-record 397 points. The East also set new marks for the most points by one team (211) the most points in a half (107), and the most 3-point makes and attempts (42-of-97) in the win.
