Mixed reactions to new NBA All-Star mini-tournament

The verdicts were mixed about the NBA’s All-Star Game mini-tournament.

Shaq’s OGs got the win in the four-team, three-game event where the first squad to score 40 points in each game got the victory.

Some players liked it. Some didn’t. Some seemed ambivalent. It was entertaining and had moments where things turned competitive, though tended to lean toward more of the same highlight-reel-type play that has been the norm in All-Star Games for years.

“I think it was a good step in the right direction to reinvigorate the game in some way,” All-Star MVP Stephen Curry of the host Golden State Warriors said. “And then you tinker with it again next year and see what changes you can make. I don’t want to compare it to any other era because the world has changed, life is different, the way people consume basketball is different. So, it’s not going to look like it used to. But it still can be fun for everybody.”

The league went to the tournament after years of asking players to take the All-Star Game more seriously. Last year’s 211-186 game in Indianapolis was the last straw for the league, and the tournament began taking shape.

The entire idea has been met with skepticism from the outset, first for the notion of turning the game into a tournament with eight-man roster and then for the additional detail of having 24 All-Stars, as usual, but adding the Rising Stars event winner — a team with no All-Stars, at least not any selected by fans, media or coaches — into the competition.

Boston’s Jayson Tatum, who scored 15 points to help Shaq’s OGs in the final, said he wasn’t sure about whether the Rising Stars should have been part of the event.

“Obviously happy for those guys,” Tatum said. “But there is something to be said, it’s kind of a big deal to be an All-Star and play Sunday night. Some guys get snubbed and other guys have to work really, really hard to make the All-Star Game. Playing on Sunday night is special, and it always has been. I’m not saying that that was the right or wrong decision.

It was unusual, for certain. Miami guard Tyler Herro, the league’s new 3-point shootout champion, played eight minutes in his All-Star debut. He didn’t even need a towel when he left the floor for the night.

San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama made his stance clear for the past couple of weeks after getting picked. He was going to play hard, and did — even trying to lock down Kyrie Irving, one of the game’s premier ballhandlers, out on the wing during one possession in the final.

“It felt like there were high stakes in the game,” Wembanyama said. “It was better than expected. I think the format worked really well.”

 

(AP Photo Jed Jacobsohn)