A significant change is coming to the NBA All-Star Recreation.
The 2026 showcase in Los Angeles will characteristic a brand new round-robin format with three groups, two USA squads and one World squad, in keeping with ESPN.
“The NBA and the gamers’ union offered the format to the league’s competitors committee on Wednesday,” Sources instructed ESPN.
Governors, crew executives, and gamers mentioned the plan in the course of the assembly, and the early response was described as constructive.
Beneath the proposal, the three groups will face off in 12-minute quarter video games, a shift from final season’s experiment with 4 single-elimination squads taking part in to a goal rating of 40 factors. That format drew criticism from a number of gamers, who felt the breaks throughout and between video games disrupted the movement.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been open about shaking up the occasion.
“It’s not misplaced on us that the 2026 All-Star Recreation shall be performed amid the Winter Olympics — in addition to on the location for the 2028 Summer time Video games,” Silver mentioned earlier this yr. “It presents an infinite alternative for us to do one thing with a global competitors as an alternative of the normal All-Star codecs that we’ve used.”
The NBA famous that about 70 p.c of its gamers are American, which means the brand new format might make it simpler for worldwide stars to earn an All-Star roster spot in a U.S. vs. the World-style setup.
Breaking the information, Shams Charania additionally highlighted the timing of the announcement, calling it “a shift designed to convey recent power to All-Star Weekend.”
The 2026 All-Star Recreation will happen February 15 on the Intuit Dome, the brand new residence of the LA Clippers. The league confirmed that the printed will transfer from its standard Sunday night slot to a Sunday afternoon tipoff on NBC.
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