Ever since players have been making oodles of money all-star games have lost a lot of their luster. Coming off the heels of the NBA All-Star game here are ten ways to make the game better – either by making it more competitive or more fun.
1) Let the players bet on their teams winning – I’m sure there are some players that do this already, but why not make it so that the players can bet their all-star bonuses on their teams to win the game. All of a sudden the intensity would be ratcheted up and the entire game might become ridiculous.
2) Dunk points – Everyone hates the dunk contest because none of the start players are in it, that’s fair. So why not get rid of the contest altogether and award extra points during the all-star game for spectacular dunks? Make it some sort of point system, 1-3 say, for the overall average judged scored of the dunk. Tally up each point during the breaks between each period and then also give the fans a vote for who the best overall dunker was and award his team an extra 5 points at the end of the game.
3a) Get rid of East and West – Ala the NHL All-star game where two team captains are selected who end up picking the roster, what’s the point in having East and West anymore? With so much roster movement now, let alone the NBA Finals still deciding which conference is superior (kind of), it’s not nearly as interesting. Let’s get some personal slights going where maybe Lebron picks Wade over Kobe, or Dwight Howard picks Blake Griffin over Nowitzki, make the players pick the teams and let the grudge match begin. We all know just how petty NBA players can be.
3b) Roster division through age – Another suggestion for roster division that is not East and West. Say the rosters were either divided by age, like say everyone under 28 is on one team, everyone over 28 is on another. Or if the rosters were divided by all-star appearances, everyone with 6 appearances or over is on one team, everyone with fewer is on the other. You can’t tell me the intensity wouldn’t be ratcheted it up as the older players don’t want to relinquish their crown and let the young guns come in.
4) Make them game 10 minutes – We all know that no one plays the last five minutes anyway, so why not make each half five minutes and players foul out with two fouls. Done and done.
5) 3 v 3 tournament – This one is simple, there are already 24 players that play in the all-star game. Let the fans vote on the 8 captains and then have them pick their 3 person team. Play 1s and 2s and win by 2, or until 42 points is reached and let them duke it out. Only other rule is that current teammates cannot be on the same team (sorry no Heat or Celtics team here). You have the preliminaries the day before the usual date for the game and then you have a round robin, double elimination tourney for the top 4 teams on the actual game day.
