After Adam Silver’s latest update on the new All-Star Game format for next season, Stephen A. Smith didn’t hold back and think the clock’s ticking on this generation of NBA stars to take the game seriously again.
“I think this is the last hope,” Smith said.“If this doesn’t work, I think you’ll see the NBA do away with All-Star weekend, and this era of players will forever be stained for the rest of their lives because All-Star weekend was banished because of a lack of effort. That’s never happened before. These guys, oh my god, effort.”
That quote made its way to social media, where Kevin Durant didn’t need many words to get his thoughts across. His reaction on X, “Dramatic.”
Smith’s not alone in sounding the alarm about the state of the All-Star Game. The league’s been wrestling with how uncompetitive it’s become, especially in recent years.
The problems aren’t new, but the apathy on display has become impossible to ignore and Silver’s latest tweaks may be a last-ditch attempt to fix it before scrapping the whole weekend becomes a real option.
Elsewhere, SAS has been majorly flamed this week.
Michelle Beadle unloaded on her former ESPN colleague after news broke that he’d be sliding into her old SiriusXM time slot – a move she claims she only learned about from a story in the Hollywood trade magazine.
“I don’t respect him. I don’t respect his work. He doesn’t like me. This goes back to the Ray Rice stuff,” Beadle said, referencing Smith’s infamous comments in 2014 that led to a suspension. “He made some really piggish comments on the air. I responded; he got suspended for [a week]. I think that was sort of the beginning of the end for anything. I just don’t respect him.” (via FOS)
She didn’t stop there: “I think he gets things wrong all the time. I’m not talking about opinions; those can never be wrong. But factually, when you spread yourself so thin, it’s hard to be right. Not a fan.”
READ MORE: Doris Burke Could Be Calling Her Last NBA Finals: Report
