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Columnist Calls NBA All-Star Weekend 'Complete Trash,' Wants Major Changes

Greg Cote did not like what he saw out there.

Kyle Koster

Shaq’s OGs guard Stephen Curry (30) of the Golden State Warriors celebrates with the MVP trophy after defeating Chuck’s Global Stars during the 2025 NBA All Star Game at Chase Center.
Shaq’s OGs guard Stephen Curry (30) of the Golden State Warriors celebrates with the MVP trophy after defeating Chuck’s Global Stars during the 2025 NBA All Star Game at Chase Center. / Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

NBA All-Star Weekend has had its fair share of detractors in recent years and those voices have gotten a bit louder after the festivites in the Bay Area over the past few days. The new tournament format failed to impress and the break in action turned into several days without games to be filled with current players crushing their own product.

While keeping in mind that these are all exhibitions and the stakes are relatively low, we may finally be looking at an inflection point where the league really has to figure out how to make the proceedings special again.

For Greg Cote, veteran Miami Herald columnist and weekly guest on The Dan Le Batard Show With Stugotz, no idea should be off the table considering on how far the floor has fallen.

"What the NBA All-Star Weekend has become is complete trash," Cote said. "LeBron James is bigger than the NBA—the only player who is. And for him to not be in uniform for this team photo ... was ridiculous. Joyfully ridiculous. I thought it was great."

"It's a middle finger to a ridiculous weekend of non-events," Cote continued. "They need to just explode—take a lesson from the NHL if you need to—they need to just explode their whole All-Star weekend."

There's going to be a lot of time and energy spent trying to fix what some see as a major problem. But the simplest answer is probably the most correct yet somehow hardest to solve. Having the best players giving maximum effort and getting stars to participate in all the ancillary contests would be an immediate solution. So the whiteboards can get pretty busy cooking up plans and strategy—yet it's really a case when one simple trick would actually do the job.

More of the 2025 NBA All-Star Game

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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