{"id":3985,"date":"2025-04-29T19:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T19:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/3985\/"},"modified":"2025-04-29T19:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T19:25:10","slug":"nba-considering-usa-vs-world-format-for-2026-all-star-game-adam-silver-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/3985\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA considering USA vs. World format for 2026 All-Star Game, Adam Silver says"},"content":{"rendered":"

NBA considering USA vs. World format for 2026 All-Star Game, Adam Silver says<\/a> originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia<\/a><\/p>\n

More changes are coming to the NBA All-Star Game<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The league has experimented with various iterations over the past several years, including drafting teams, Elam Endings and, most recently, a tournament involving four teams \u2014 a format that has already been shelved<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Now, Adam Silver has told The Athletic<\/a> that the NBA is looking into a potential showdown in 2026 between American players and worldwide stars.<\/p>\n

One factor that the league is considering is that NBC will air the game<\/a> next February for the first time since 2002. The All-Star festivities will take place in the midst of the Milan Cortina Olympics<\/a>, which NBC will also broadcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur All-Star Game will return to NBC next season in the middle of their coverage of the Winter Olympics,\u201d\u00a0Silver told The Athletic. \u201cGiven the strong interest we\u2019ve seen in international basketball competitions, most recently in last summer\u2019s Olympics in Paris, we\u2019re discussing concepts with the players association that focus on NBA players representing their countries or regions instead of the more traditional formats that we\u2019ve used in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byron Spruell, the NBA\u2019s president of league operations, echoed Silver\u2019s sentiments.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

\u201cNBC is very much leaning into it, given their role \u2014 we are, as well,\u201d Spruell said. \u201cLooking to do something new and different yet again, but excited about the possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newly-opened Intuit Dome in Los Angeles will play host to the 2026 All-Star Game on Sunday, Feb. 15, during the afternoon. By moving the game up a few hours, NBC will follow it up with Olympic prime-time coverage from Italy.<\/p>\n

Silver added that the arena, which will host basketball games during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics<\/a>, gives the NBA a unique chance to play on the international theme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be competing in the arena at Intuit, where the basketball competition will take place in the 2028 Olympics,\u201d Silver said. \u201cSo, I think all of those factors, when they come together, it presents an enormous opportunity for us to do something with an international competition instead of the traditional All-Star formats that we\u2019ve used.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

At one time, it would\u2019ve been far-fetched to have a competition pitting American players against everyone else. But many of the world\u2019s best players now hail from outside the United States \u2014 including every NBA MVP from 2019 through this season (three outsiders are MVP finalists in 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The pool of foreign players includes Nikola Joki\u0107 (Serbia), Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece), Luka Don\u010di\u0107 (Slovenia), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Canada), Victor Wembanyama (France), Pascal Siakam (Cameroon) Alperen \u015eeng\u00fcn (Turkey). Joel Embiid was born in Cameroon, but has competed internationally for Team USA<\/a> as an American citizen.<\/p>\n

The NHL used a similar idea for its 2025 All-Star format, where the 4 National Face-Off<\/a> was seen as a massive success<\/a>. While the NBA wouldn\u2019t use a drawn out tournament like the NHL did, it would attempt to build that sense of pride in representing your country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA considering USA vs. World format for 2026 All-Star Game, Adam Silver says originally appeared on NBC Sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2489,2214,2488,7,2490,2491,123,936,368,2487,6,2032,2485,253,279,209,2486,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-3985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-2028-los-angeles-olympics","9":"tag-adam-silver","10":"tag-american-players","11":"tag-basketball","12":"tag-basketball-competition","13":"tag-elam-endings","14":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","15":"tag-joel-embiid","16":"tag-luka-doncic","17":"tag-milan-cortina-olympics","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-nba-players","20":"tag-nbc","21":"tag-nikola-jokic","22":"tag-pascal-siakam","23":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","24":"tag-the-athletic","25":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114422895331329833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}