The 10-time NBA All-Star sat down with Rich Kleiman to reflect on his time in the league’s midseason showcase and what the league can do to bring back interest in the game.
Video Transcript
What was the all star experience like for you?
You always seemed like you enjoyed it and owned it, um, and what do you think about this format and if it even is fixable from that regard?
The All-Star game that I remember growing up and looking at was like.
You know that the players wore their own uniform, you know, they wore their team uniforms, whatever you represented your team.
It was the, the competition was there like the intentions was there, right?
Everybody was competing, everybody knew what time it was, everybody knew this is what we gonna do, but 4th quarter come, we locking in.
And I, I just think over the years it just became, I don’t wanna say watered down, but it just became more of a, not intentional from, from the player standpoint in competition.
It was like, I remember being in locker rooms like people were really, really mad at like the west or the east, you know what I’m saying, like, yo, we’re gonna shut them down.
We ain’t like it was real strategy going into all-Star games, so.
You know, I, I think that the competitiveness has, has died down in the All-Star game.
The All-Star game now they’re trying.
They trying new formats and, you know, one format ain’t working, they gonna try something new, but it’s like that’s the, that’s the society we’re in, you know what I mean?
It’s constant turnover, it’s constant.
You can’t stay still, you can’t sit still.
You got to constantly build, you gotta Take the fans into account.
You gotta take fan experiences into account.
So I think that’s what we’re seeing right now.
I wonder if it has more to do with how desynthesized society is right?
with social media and the access to content at all times because you see with the NFL when there’s so few of something and the stakes are so high, everybody’s really compelled and locked in.
I can’t tell if it’s the fans that may be over all star, right?
And the players can maybe pick up on it a bit like it all just doesn’t feel like it has any urgency around the game.
When I was younger, I agree with you.
Like I would watch a game that was the only time you were going to see something like this and the players kind of fed off of the fact that the the fans are that way, but the first half of the All-Star game is crickets in the crowd.
There’s a disconnect between.
What the players want and what the fans want, yeah, right, and nobody is really.
The the the players not saying what they want until something is presented to them and they’re like, no, no, we don’t wanna do that.
Like we don’t like that idea.
Then the fans don’t know what they want, right?
They don’t know if they wanna go back to the old format when the old format was a couple years ago.
They were, they ain’t like that.
They said scrap the All-Star game, scrap All-Star weekend like.
It’s a lot that goes on, but the thing is, it’s too much money involved.
You know, you know what’s happening.
It’s too much money involved to just scrap all of that, so you gotta keep finding ways to engage the fan and, and, and, and to get those eyeballs.
So, you know, this new format, let’s, let’s see, let’s see if it works, you know what I mean?
Like I don’t, I don’t know if it’s gonna work.
It’s interesting, but let’s let’s let’s see if it I think it would have been better just from the amount of heat last year got if they just left it alone, to be honest with you, and go back to just play everybody heard it.
It was loud and clear, right?
I think everybody heard like the fans, the league, everybody was off of it.
They probably should have just let the players do do you know it’s interesting.
