The NBA All-Star Game has ranged from barely-watchable to kind-of-fun over the last several years, putting it in the same category with just about any other All-Star Game. Thankfully, the NBA announced a few dramatic All-Star Game changes on Tuesday, with the most notable being the addition of captains and a draft for the East and West. The leading vote-getter in each conference will captain their conferences squad, and will then be tasked with drafting their teams from the available player pool of All-Stars. This means you could see LeBron James play on the same All-Star team as Stephen Curry, for example.
It’s an exciting announcement because the NBA All-Star Game needed to do something. It’s too early to tell if this will improve the on-court product, but it’ll certainly create more buzz and intrigue leading up to the event. If you get the right captains, and force, say, LeBron James to pick between Kyrie Irving and Stephen Curry, though, it’s going to be must-see TV.
In fact, one Cleveland Cavaliers reported proposed that exact question to Kevin Love.
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“It depends on how far he [Kyrie Irving and Stephen Curry] is picked. You know he’s gonna pick, you know, we talked about peanut butter and jelly this week. Maybe the banana boat guys. We’ll see what happens.”
It was a pretty masterful question deflection on Kevin Love’s part, but he does raise a few interesting points. You’ve got to imagine some heavy favoritism will come into play here, right? Considering the fact that the game doesn’t mean anything, you’re going to see NBA captains lean towards their friends, which makes watching LeBron James have to pick, or not pick, Kyrie Irving even more fascinating.
Unfortunately for NBA fans hoping to see the Banana Boat crew finally reunite in an All-Star setting, it’s going to take a major comeback season from Dwyane Wade to make that a possibility. He wasn’t an All-Star for the first time since his rookie year last season in Chicago, and he’s coming to Cleveland in what will likely be a reduced role. For the Banana Boat’s sake, I hope he has one more All-Star season in him.
