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NEW ORLEANS – FEBRUARY 19: The Eastern Conference All-Star Team walks through the hallways before the 2017 NBA All-Star Game on February 19, 2017 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, Louisiana. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2017 NBAE (Photo by Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images) Photo by Juan Ocampo/NBAE via Getty Images
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NBA injects some life into All-Star Game

You got your five?

Clinton Yates @clintonyates
Topics:
All Day LeBron James Kevin Durant NHL Russell Westbrook Kyrie Irving

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    4:52 PMThe season has already gotten off to a different start in the NBA. The preseason started earlier. There are company logos on the uniforms. Now, the best change yet has been made official: They’re going to a playground pick ’em-style setup for the All-Star Game. It couldn’t have come at a better time.

    Remember last year, when people wondered what Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook would do playing alongside former teammate Kevin Durant, who’d just gone to Golden State? Turns out it was nothing, as they still had to be on the same squad playing for the Western Conference. Sure, we all joked about how awkward it could be, but now they’ll legitimately get to play AGAINST EACH OTHER in an exhibition game. Never mind the Kyrie/LeBron bad blood.

    The NHL adopted this format a couple of years back, and the resulting events were spectacular. The squad selection ceremony is one of the most fun televised productions of the year. And while the NBA doesn’t lack in personality, or connectivity with fans that an event like that would help foster, that’s not the point. Turn a room full of NBA players loose to pick teams on national television and you’ve got instant gold. The game might be fun, but watching these guys politic with their friends about who’s on whose team would be incredible.

    Plus, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O’Neal and Ernie Smith on the commentary? This is the free-for-all event the NBA needed, not the awards ceremony after the season is already over.

    According to the league, nothing will change about the actual selection of the players to the rosters themselves, it’s just a matter of who plays with whom when they tip off. The 67th All-Star Game will be played at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 18 at 8 p.m. Eastern and will air on TNT.

    Clinton Yates is a tastemaker at Andscape. He likes rap, rock, reggae, R&B and remixes — in that order.