complex “US – Rest of the World” format.

Every year, or almost, NBA changes the format of the All-Star Game to try to revive an event that has become generally uninteresting until players no longer want to defend and get hurt…

For the 2026 edition, which will be held at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood on February 15, we will have the right to in “United States – Rest of the World” format. with two teams (of eight players) made up of American players, and a final team (also of eight players) made up of international players.

All three teams will face each other in one quarter, and the top two will face each other in the final quarter. In total, we will have four quarters of 12 minutes each, which is the equivalent of a full match. If the three teams finish the first round 1-1, it is the “point average” that will be used to decide between them all.

The match ends in second place TNT pour NBCand it will be broadcast earlier than usual (11:00 p.m. French time) because the American channel will immediately broadcast the match of the American hockey team during the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina in the American “prime time”.

Jobs are disappearing

Another change: there will be no more positions for selections. Until now, the NBA has chosen two guards and three forwards in the top five, plus two guards, three forwards and two wild cards who could play any position for substitutes. Now these marks disappear.

However, as the NBA wants to keep its public voting system, in which it then involves journalists and players, to begin with, the process of selecting replacement coaches, we arrive at an extremely complex selection process, which will sometimes have to be compensated…

So first we’ll end up with 12 players from the Western Conference and 12 players from the Eastern Conference. We will then have to divide these 24 players into three teams, and the process for allocating American players has not yet been defined. Except there’s a risk that there won’t be enough US or international players!

Therefore “commissioner” is Adam Silver who will have to intervene, if among the 24 selected players there are, for example, only 10 American players. He will then need to add two bonus players to ensure he has at least 8 players per team. We can’t deny that the NBA is racking its brains to try to regain interest in the All-Star Game, even if that means making the selection process very difficult to read.