Kevin Durant challenges declare that previous stars performed tougher in NBA All-Star Games

Kevin Durant has had so much to say this weekend on the state of the NBA All-Star Game.

For years, the competitiveness of the All-Star Game has been a scorching subject as viewership has declined. Through a number of format modifications, a draft, three groups of eight, World vs. USA groups, the NBA has tried a number of completely different approaches to generate competitiveness and curiosity.

Some of the scrutiny has centered on the notion that earlier All-Star Games, equivalent to when younger Kobe Bryant took it upon himself to problem Michael Jordan within the 1998 All-Star Game, had been extra aggressive and featured higher participant effort.

So Durant advised reporters on Saturday that he went again and checked out earlier All-Star Games, claiming to look at “at least the first quarter of every All-Star Game from like the ’70s up until the late ’90s,” trying to find validity within the presumption that earlier editions displayed greater competitiveness.

After his analysis, he bristled at that notion.

“I’ve been watching All-Star Games and the intensity the older generation been talking about,” Durant advised reporters earlier than trailing off and shaking his head disapprovingly. “I don’t know if I’ve seen it.”

Viewership numbers of the midseason, star-studded exhibition have declined lately.

Front Office Sports’ Ryan Glasspiegel reported that viewership for the 2025 All-Star Game was down 13 p.c from the 2024 recreation, sitting at 4.7 million viewers. It was the second-lowest All-Star Game viewership since 2000, which, in contrast, had 10.5 million viewers. The earlier three iterations are among the many lowest, and the one video games to provide fewer than 6 million viewers. The 2023 All-Star Game drew solely 4.6 million.

Earlier this week, the Houston Rockets ahead, about to compete in his sixteenth All-Star Game on Sunday in Los Angeles, challenged the concept that it was elder statesmen like Stephen Curry, LeBron James or Durant himself who brought on the shift in effort and due to this fact the watchability of the sport. That it was them alone ceding seriousness for leisure enjoyment of the league’s most gifted showcase that modified the notion of it.

“You should ask the Europeans and the World team if they’re going to compete,” Durant mentioned. “If you look at Luka Dončić and Nikola Jokić now, let’s go back and look at what they do in the All-Star Game. Is that competition? So we haven’t questioned what they’ve been doing. But we’re going to question the old heads and the Americans.

“But these two dudes out there, Luka and Jokić, they don’t care about the game at all. These dudes be laying on the floor. They’re shooting from half court. But you’ve got to worry about the old heads playing hard? I can read between the lines, bro. It’s just an overall topic that everybody’s been talking about.”

On Saturday, Durant reaffirmed his stance that the query of his and different superstars’ effort was an unavailing narrative to discover each February.

“I just feel like fans and media need something to complain about, and the All-Star Game don’t make them feel like it made them feel back when they were kids, so they need something to complain about,” the 37-year-old mentioned. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, to be honest. The All-Star Game, the All-Star Weekend, it’s here to celebrate the game of basketball.”

Durant, without end the hoops obsessive, merely sees the All-Star Game in a unique mild.

Regardless of the tv worth of the particular recreation, it’s a celebration of the league for him. To see the basketball world, present and former (he shouted out former teammate and four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins attending the media session) descend collectively upon one metropolis in a single second is sufficient for him.

Let everybody else say what they need.

“People at home complaining about the game and the intensity of it, I don’t think we’ll ever get past that,” Durant mentioned. “I just think it’s way bigger than that this weekend. We can talk about who plays harder, the U.S. team vs. the World team, all that stuff doesn’t matter. I just really feel like this is a great weekend, and it brings so many people together and helps push the game forward.”

And for the older technology that claims the NBA greats competed tougher within the All-Star Game?

Durant watched the video games.

He doesn’t consider you.