NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he expects to have All-Star Game tweaks approved by the start of the 2025-26 regular season.
Silver confirmed that the NBA was looking at a structure he referred to as a ‘Ryder Cup-type format.’
The 2026 NBA All-Star Game will be played Sunday, Feb. 15 at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.
NEW YORK — Expect changes to the NBA All-Star Game to be formalized very soon.
After news emerged last week that the league had honed in on a round-robin tournament structure featuring domestic players against international ones, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday, Sept. 10 that he expects to have the tweaks approved by the start of the 2025-26 regular season on Oct. 21.
“The goal is to have the new format in place by the opening of the regular season,” Silver said upon the conclusion of the Board of Governors session at the St. Regis Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. “I think there’s something to that, that once the season starts everyone should understand the rules of the road and what we’re looking at for All-Star this year. That would be our goal.”
Silver confirmed that the NBA was looking at a structure with a pair of teams featuring domestic players and one consisting of international stars, something he referred to as a “Ryder Cup-type format of U.S. against international,” alluding to the golf tournament. Each team will have eight players, and 12-minute quarter games will be played. He said the structure had been discussed with the Competition Committee, and that it was raised with the Board of Governors at the meetings this week.
This is a departure from the format at the 2025 All-Star Game in San Francisco, which saw a mini-tournament with four teams competing in three games. Silver has been outspoken about the format being “a miss.”
Silver also added that the NBA is working alongside the National Basketball Players Association and executive director Andre Iguodala to finalize the revised format.
“I think they have the same interest we do in having a more exciting and engaging All-Star,” Silver said. “None of us have shied away from acknowledging our disappointment of what we’ve seen on the floor the last few years. It’s an odd situation because it’s not just us and the Players Association, but even the players individually are acknowledging, ‘Yeah, this is not the best foot forward for the league.’ ”
Although the NBA is fully leaning into the U.S. versus World format, one of the four teams at last season’s event was comprised mostly of international superstars. That team, Chuck’s Global Stars, had players like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokić and Victor Wembanyama, though it also had domestic players like Donovan Mitchell and Trae Young.
The NBA is also looking to capitalize on the potential momentum of international competition, with the All-Star break coming right in the middle of the Winter Olympics, which will be held in Milan Cortina.
“I will say I’m hopeful,” Silver said. “I know I’ve stood up before all of you before and said, we fixed it, we got it, it’s going to work this year. So I don’t want to overpromise. But I feel pretty good about it.”
The 2026 All-Star Game will be played Sunday, Feb. 15 at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, the home arena of the Los Angeles Clippers.
