Boston Celtics forward Jaylen Brown loves the idea of a one-on-one competition during All-Star Game weekend, per comments relayed by ESPN NBA Senior Writer Vincent Goodwill. He also mentioned some superstars that he’d love to challenge to a game.
The NBA could perhaps take a page from Unrivaled, which hosts a midseason one-on-one tournament featuring women’s pro basketball’s top stars. They feature 10-minute games up to 11 points with two- and three-pointers. The championship round is best-of-three with games up to seven points.
A one-on-one idea would be interesting simply to shake things up at All-Star Weekend and see if it works out. The All-Star Weekend in general has featured much criticism over time, mainly because of the lack of defense and effort in the All-Star Game itself and a Slam Dunk contest that doesn’t have the juice from years past for various reasons.
Brown is a proponent of the competition, though. We’ll see if there’s enough groundswell for a one-on-one tournament to actually happen.
In the meantime, the All-Star Weekend continues Saturday with the Dunk Contest serving as the exclamation point before the first-ever three-team All-Star round robin goes down on Sunday, featuring two American squads and a World team.