It takes a lot to get a near-unanimous opinion on any sports matter these days, but the 2025 NBA All-Star Weekend achieved that.

The festivities in the Bay Area were panned across the board, with almost everyone disliking the tournament-style All-Star Game and some of the events on All-Star Saturday. In fact, Draymond Green, who was a part of TNT’s coverage for Sunday’s game, called the format “ridiculous,” adding that it was a “zero” out of 10 on the excitement scale.

So yeah, it’s time for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to get back in the lab and tinker around with not just the All-Star Game, but the contests leading up to it. Luckily for him, we’ve got five ideas to revamp the whole weekend.

1. Make at least two current All-Stars participate in each contest on All-Star Saturday

This one is mostly aimed at the Slam Dunk Contest, as the Skills Challenge and 3-Point Contest regularly have multiple All-Stars compete in each event. In recent years, though, the Slam Dunk Contest has been filled with players who can’t even crack their respective team’s rotations, with the likes of Mac McClung, Jacob Toppin, Kenyon Martin Jr., Cassius Stanley and Hamidou Diallo having participated.

This year, Boston Celtics wing Jaylen Brown was the only contestant who also played in the All-Star Game on that same weekend.

[Related: Four questions after the NBA’s latest attempt at reviving All-Star Sunday night]

Suffice to say, there’s just no star power in the Slam Dunk Contest, at least not to the level there was in the 1980s-2000s. Nowadays, the league office would have to incentivize All-Stars to want to take part in the Slam Dunk Contest, but they could get creative. Maybe they could mandate that to play in an All-Star Game, you have to have participated in at least one All-Star Saturday event at some point in your career.

Luckily for the NBA, a couple of All-Stars have floated the possibility of performing in next year’s event. Ja Morant and Giannis Antetokounmpo both shared on social media that they were interested in doing the event after watching McClung three-peat on Saturday. We’ll see if they stick to their word or pull a LeBron James.

This fix would also allow 3-point and dunk specialists to still participate in the event. McClung’s slams to win Saturday’s Slam Dunk Contest were certainly exciting. Stephon Castle also had a couple of memorable dunks in the final round. Adding a pair of All-Stars to go up against those two might have added much-needed pizzazz. 

2. Get rid of the Skills Challenge and bring back the Shooting Stars Competition

Of the All-Star Saturday events, none have been fiddled with as much as the Skills Challenge. There’s a reason for that: It’s not very good.

San Antonio Spurs stars Victor Wembanyama and Chris Paul proved that this weekend. The two thought they had found a loophole in the competition, quickly tossing balls to the side when they were supposed to shoot them. They were disqualified as a result, creating one of the highlights of the weekend due to their willingness to not even try in the event.

The other highlight of this year’s Skills Challenge was watching Green stumble his way through the course in the final round. Beyond Green’s struggles, the course seems relatively easy for NBA players, considering all they have to do is dribble, pass, and make a few jump shots and a layup.

So, let’s get rid of the Skills Challenge and bring back a contest that honors the history of the game and shines a light on the WNBA: the Shooting Stars Competition. If you need a refresher, the event featured an NBA All-Star, an NBA icon and a current WNBA player from the same city or state teaming up to go head-to-head with another trio, all while making shots from around the court. The final shot was from half court, showcasing more difficulty than the Skills Challenge. 

This year, we could’ve seen Karl-Anthony Towns, Carmelo Anthony and Sabrina Ionescu represent New York, or Pascal Siakam and Caitlin Clark partner up with Reggie Miller to represent Indiana. The possibilities for this are endless. 

3. Make the 3-Point Contest an eight-player tournament, but with a twist

The 3-Point Contest has been the most reliable event of All-Star Weekend over the years, with several All-Stars competing for the crown and providing a handful of exciting moments. But like everything else during All-Star Weekend, it can get better.

In order to provide a little extra drama, the NBA should change it to an eight-player tournament, but with participants who are shooting at the same time. They wouldn’t be shooting at the same basket, though; rather, each would occupy one side of the court. 

This would remove the target score element of the 3-Point Contest, in which players typically know how many points they need in order to advance. Instead, they’d be trying to get as many 3-pointers up as they can and wouldn’t know if they were safe or not until the end.

Another 3-Point Contest-related idea for the NBA: Get rid of the balls that are worth more points. The winner shouldn’t be determined based off a player shooting worse from their moneyball rack than their opponent. 

4. Have the winner of the 3-Point Contest take on the winner of the previous year’s WNBA 3-Point Contest

In this scenario, whoever wins the 3-Point Contest wouldn’t stop there. They’d have to go for one more round of 3-point shooting, going head-to-head with the winner of the previous year’s WNBA 3-Point Contest in a “battle of the sexes” competition.

This idea was inspired by the memorable Steph Curry vs. Sabrina Ionescu 3-point duel at All-Star Saturday in 2024, when the WNBA star nearly took down the NBA’s all-time 3-point king. That event was arguably the best All-Star-related highlight of the last few years.

After this year’s 3-Point Contest, Tyler Herro would’ve had to take on Atlanta Dream guard Allisha Gray, who won the WNBA 3-Point Contest in 2024. That might not have the name recognition that Curry-Ionescu had, but it still would’ve added more fun to the evening while also providing another chance for the WNBA to showcase itself.

5. Change the All-Star Game format to USA vs. the World

As you’ve likely noticed, there haven’t been any suggestions yet on how we’d tweak the actual All-Star Game. But there aren’t many organic ways to change the All-Star Game that the NBA hasn’t tried yet. It’s done the All-Star draft. It’s tried the Elam Ending. This year, it had a four-team tournament, with the winning team from the Rising Stars Challenge making up a quarter of the players in the All-Star Game. 

There is one idea, though, that could encourage players to put up a little more effort: having the United States’ best basketball players take on the rest of the world’s best. In recent years, we’ve seen the United States struggle to hold on to its basketball dominance in international events, finishing fourth in the 2023 FIBA Tournament before needing dramatic wins to take home gold at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

If hockey’s Four Nations Faceoff is any indication, this would also provide some country pride. The NHL-created event saw the United States and Canada get in three fights in the first nine seconds of their game on Saturday as that tournament replaced the NHL’s All-Star Game.

The only concern here is if you’d have enough international players to participate in the event without costing a handful of notable American players All-Star spots. There were nine foreign-born players in this year’s All-Star Game, though one of them was Kyrie Irving, who has played for the United States in international tournaments in the past. 

Luka Doncic likely would’ve been an All-Star if he had appeared in enough games and Domantas Sabonis certainly had a strong case to be named an All-Star this year, which would’ve helped the international team. But it still would’ve needed to fill out two spots on the roster. Maybe a couple of American All-Stars could volunteer to play for the international team? 

Even though there’s a hoop to jump through with this one, it seems like the only idea left that would bring more of a competitive spirit to the All-Star Game. 

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