SAN FRANCISCO — This year’s NBA All-Star Game was an end, the final All-Star Game aired on TNT before the league switches television partners. The NBA All-Star Game was a beginning, the league actively changing the format to a four-team mini-tournament aimed to shrink bloated scores and increase competition.
And the NBA All-Star Game was a showcase, a reminder that Stephen Curry and the Bay Area are definitive fabrics in the story of the modern game.
What the NBA All-Star Game wasn’t, again, was a game — at least not one that anyone would’ve recognized in a traditional sense. And maybe it doesn’t need to be one.
LeBron James didn’t play because of foot and ankle soreness, with the aim of being back on the floor Wednesday when the Lakers resume their season. Anthony Edwards suited up for his team but never entered the game, lingering groin soreness keeping him from participating. He, too, said he thought he’d be fine once the regular season resumed.
The decision for James and Edwards to sit, despite the 17-year-age difference, underscored the cost-benefit analysis players are making while the NBA and fans push for the game to be played with the kind of intensity and energy that makes 48 minutes on any given night an occurrence worth celebrating.
For a young player such as Cleveland’s Darius Garland, his first All-Star Game appearance was special. It wasn’t, however, worth risking the rest of his season for the first-place Cavaliers.
