NBA All-Star Game format: Here’s how league’s mini-tournament will work — and who will pick the teams

Changes are coming to NBA’s All-Star Game. The league confirmed Tuesday that the 2025 NBA All-Star Game in San Francisco will be a “mini-tournament” featuring four teams: three teams of NBA All-Stars plus the winner of the annual Rising Stars challenge. Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” will be the “honorary general managers” of the three teams of NBA All-Stars and will be responsible for drafting their eight-player rosters.

Here are more details of the All-Star Game changes.

NBA All-Star Game format

• The NBA is switching to a mini-tournament featuring four teams: three teams of NBA All-Stars and the winner of the Rising Stars challenge. The Rising Stars challenge — itself a four-team tournament — will be held Friday night and features the league’s best first- and second-year players plus a handful of G League players.
• Each team of NBA All-Stars will have eight players. There will be a total of 24 NBA All-Stars (excluding injury replacements), the same number as previous seasons. 
• The tournament format, from the NBA’s press release: “Two teams will meet in one semifinal (Game 1), and the remaining two teams will meet in the other semifinal (Game 2). The winning teams from Game 1 and Game 2 will advance to face each other in the championship (Game 3). For each game, the winner will be the first team to reach or surpass 40 points.”
• The voting process remains the same, so 10 players will still be picked as “starters” and there will be 12 players per conference. Again, from the NBA’s release: “The five players honored as starters in each conference will be selected by fans (50% of the vote), current NBA players (25%) and a media panel (25%). The seven players honored as reserves in each conference will be selected by NBA head coaches.” Voting begins Thursday (Dec. 19).
• There is a prize pool of $1.8 million. Each player on the championship-winning team gets $125,000. Players on the second-place team get $50,000. Players on the teams that lose in the semifinals get $25,000.

Previously the league held one 48-minute All-Star Game, traditionally between the Eastern Conference and Western Conference. Teams were picked by leading vote-getters between 2018-2023, but the league returned to East vs. West last season in Indianapolis. The result was a 397-point affair that led to plenty of criticism.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has repeatedly lamented the quality of play in recent All-Star Games and stated that the league is open to tweaking the format. During his media availability in Mexico on Nov. 2, Silver hinted at something like this by saying the league was looking at not having a “traditional game format” this year.

Silver added: “I think everyone was disappointed in what they saw last year. It wasn’t just the league, it was the players, as well, the players association. I think we all did what we thought we could, thinking we would — particularly in Indiana, sort of the heartland of basketball — somehow we would give it the college try, and we’d see a more competitive game.”

Silver said that the league had confirmed a committee to talk about the issue with the NBPA and team representatives about trying “something new” in order to “excite the fans and also excite the players, so it’s something they’re enthusiastic about participating in.”

The 2025 All-Star weekend will be held from Feb. 14-16 in San Francisco. Silver said league officials have “had direct conversations” with Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry about changing the format because Curry is “very prideful and wants to make sure that the players put their best foot forward.”