The National Basketball Association (NBA) has officially reached the midpoint of the season, with the NBA All-Star game taking place in Los Angeles at the Intuit Dome. Some of the events that take place during the All-Star Weekend are a three point contest, dunk contest, skills contest, celebrity basketball game, and the All-Star game itself. 

In the last couple of years, the weekend has been heavily debated because players are not putting in full effort during these events, and some are even sitting out of many of the games. This has brought extreme disappointment to fans because players who are less recognizable are competing in the dunk contest instead of All-Stars and legends that fans actually want to see. 

Players began to sit out of these games when Lebron James rejected an invite to compete in the dunk contest years ago. Now, players are choosing to sit out because they believe that there isn’t a real reason to compete. In past years, fans would be excited to see matchups like Kobe Bryant vs. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird. Now, players feel like they don’t need to prove themselves to the fans or the rest of the league, which has ultimately made the All-Star game boring. 

The league commissioner, Adam Silver, has attempted to bring new formats into the game such as a players draft of their own teams, the game going to a target score and the newly added Strips vs. Stars vs. World. It has been a great struggle for the commissioner to make these games worth it for the players. He even added a bonus to play in these games. 

No matter what, players like Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokić do not want to compete in the game because they feel like they may be risking injury for something that doesn’t matter. In the next few years it is important to find a way to engage the players so that the fans can enjoy watching the competition.