The NBA switched from a single All-Star game to a mini-tournament featuring three shorter games. Jayson Tatum says he has mixed feelings about one particular part of the format.
The 24 NBA All-Stars were spread across three teams, and a fourth team, the winning of Friday night’s Rising Stars tournament, was added to the mix. The Rising Stars are comprised of first and second year NBA players.
Tatum’s team, Shaq’s OG’s, won the title. Their matchup with the Rising Stars champs was actually much closer than the championship round against Chuck’s Global Stars, which featured Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and other NBA stars.
Tatum said he has some reservations about allowing the Rising Stars players to play in the All-Star tournament.
“I don’t know,” Tatum said. “I’ve got mixed emotions or feelings, I guess, about the Rising Stars part. Obviously happy for those guys, but it is something to be said and it is kind of a big deal to be in All-Star and play Sunday night.”
“Some guys get snubbed, other guys have to work really, really hard to make the All-Star game,” he added. “Playing on Sunday night is special and it always has been. I’m not saying that was the right or wrong decision. I think whoever we played in that first game, in the new format would have been competitive. So, trial run, I guess. But, they’ll continue to make tweaks or whatever.”
While the inclusion of the Rising Stars did allow for an early glimpse of talented young players, such as Amen Thompson, there were several NBA stars who were left out of the game altogether. Lamelo Ball, Devin Booker, Luka Doncic, Tyrese Haliburton, and Tyrese Maxey are among those who did not make the but.
There was still plenty of NBA star power to go around. Tatum’s team alone had him, Jaylen Brown, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, and James Harden. They also had LeBron James, who announced before the game that he would miss it because of an injury, on the roster.
The Global stars were star-studded, too. Giannis Antetokounmpo didn’t play, but Jokic and SGA did. So did Donovan Mitchell, Victor Wembanyama, and Karl-Anthony Towns.
The addition of a fourth team made up of players who weren’t selected as All-Stars could be viewed by some as controversial considering the amount of talent that didn’t make it into the game. There’s also the fact that there was a team in the Rising Stars tournament comprised entirely of G-League players, and they would have had an opportunity to play in the All-Star Tournament had they won all of their games.
One thing that can’t be argued, though, is that the Rising Stars produced a closer match against the super-talented OG’s than the Global Stars did. The NBA was looking to inject life into the All-Star game, and they decided that an infusion of young talent could help do just that.
