While traditionally never the most competitive or intense game, rather a friendly showcase of the league’s elite talent, the NBA All-Star Game has become increasingly underwhelming and even less competitive the past couple years (Steph Curry literally laid down on defense at one point).
Kevin Durant has a hypothesis on this trend: energy and effort level are low because the game is on Sunday.
Kevin Durant on why All-Star game is low quality: ‘It’s Sunday’ https://t.co/e3ApthNtpE pic.twitter.com/mhLE4O8AoJ
— NBA on Scoreboard Page (@NBAonSP) April 4, 2017
On Bill Simmons, B.S. Podcast, Durant shared his opinion on the All-Star game along with his opinion that the beef between he and Russell Westbrook is completely manufactured.
Here is Durant’s quote about the All-Star Game:
“It’s Sunday. It’s Sunday. It’s Sunday. The game is Sunday. We done did everything from Thursday, had a game, fly into New Orleans hit the ground running. And by Sunday, by the time Sunday – and you want to enjoy your break. By the time Sunday come, we’re like man, let’s just get this over with and get back to the second half of the season.
Durant makes an interesting point, these guys have been running around like mad men making media appearances and sponsorship appearances and being involved with countless events around the local community for three full days before they get to the game on Sunday.
From the league’s perspective though, it makes very little sense to move the game to Friday or Saturday and the competitions to Sunday.
It seems like this is one situation where fans just have to deal with the product level for the actual game, although I am sure the league and Turner Sports aren’t too fond of that mentality.
