reported<\/a> that viewership for the 2025 All-Star Game was down 13 percent from the 2024 game, sitting at 4.7 million viewers. It was the second-lowest All-Star Game viewership since 2000, which, by contrast, had 10.5 million viewers. The previous three iterations are among the lowest, and the only games to produce fewer than 6 million viewers. The 2023 All-Star Game drew only 4.6 million.<\/p>\nEarlier this week, the Houston Rockets forward, about to compete in his 16th All-Star Game on Sunday in Los Angeles, challenged the idea that it was elder statesmen like Stephen Curry, LeBron James or Durant himself who caused the shift in effort and therefore the watchability of the game. That it was them alone ceding seriousness for recreational enjoyment of the league\u2019s most talented showcase that changed the perception of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should ask the Europeans and the World team if they\u2019re going to compete,\u201d Durant said. \u201cIf you look at Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and Nikola Joki\u0107 now, let\u2019s go back and look at what they do in the All-Star Game. Is that competition? So we haven\u2019t questioned what they\u2019ve been doing. But we\u2019re going to question the old heads and the Americans.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut these two dudes out there, Luka and Joki\u0107, they don\u2019t care about the game at all. These dudes be laying on the floor. They\u2019re shooting from half court. But you\u2019ve got to worry about the old heads playing hard? I can read between the lines, bro. It\u2019s just an overall topic that everybody\u2019s been talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Durant reaffirmed his stance that the question of his and other superstars\u2019 effort was an unavailing narrative to explore every February.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel like fans and media need something to complain about, and the All-Star Game don\u2019t make them feel like it made them feel back when they were kids, so they need something to complain about,\u201d the 37-year-old said. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s that big of a deal, to be honest. The All-Star Game, the All-Star Weekend, it\u2019s here to celebrate the game of basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durant, forever the hoops obsessive, simply sees the All-Star Game in a different light.<\/p>\n
Regardless of the television value of the actual game, it\u2019s a celebration of the league for him. To see the basketball world, current and previous (he shouted out former teammate and four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins attending the media session) descend together upon one city in one moment is enough for him.<\/p>\n
Let everyone else say what they want.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople at home complaining about the game and the intensity of it, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ll ever get past that,\u201d Durant said. \u201cI just think it\u2019s way bigger than that this weekend. We can talk about who plays harder, the U.S. team vs. the World team, all that stuff doesn\u2019t matter. I just really feel like this is a great weekend, and it brings so many people together and helps push the game forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
And for the older generation that says the NBA greats competed harder in the All-Star Game?<\/p>\n
Durant watched the games.<\/p>\n
He doesn\u2019t believe you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant has had a lot to say this weekend on the state of the NBA All-Star Game.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,292,194,4066,6,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-603830","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-rockets","11":"tag-houstonrockets","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-rockets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116072342032558803","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603830","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=603830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}