Leaning into the global star power that has defined modern basketball, the NBA on Tuesday unveiled a new All-Star Game format featuring U.S. and World teams.
Set for Feb. 15 in Inglewood, California, the midseason showcase will adopt a round-robin format with one team of international players and two squads of U.S. stars.
Each matchup will last 12 minutes, with the top two teams advancing to a championship finale.
As usual, the five starters from each conference will be determined by a formula combining 50% fan votes, 25% player votes and 25% media votes.
Coaches will then select seven reserves per conference, completing the 24-player roster regardless of position.
The league will later assign the chosen players to the respective U.S. squads.
If fewer than eight World players or fewer than 16 U.S. players are among the 24 selected, Commissioner Adam Silver will add additional players to fill out the teams as needed.
The 2025 NBA All-Star Game in San Francisco was widely criticized for a format that included three drafted teams plus the team that had won the Rising Stars Challenge.
Previous All-Star Games also drew criticism for a lack of defense. The Eastern Conference defeated the Western Conference 211-186 in the 2024 game in Indianapolis, and a team drafted by Giannis Antetokounmpo beat a team drafted by LeBron James 184-175 in Salt Lake City the previous year.
Highlighting the NBA’s international reach, the past seven regular-season MVP awards have gone to international players: Greece’s Antetokounmpo (2018-19, 2019-20), Serbia’s Nikola Jokic (2020-21, 2021-22, 2023-24), Cameroon’s Joel Embiid (2022-23) and Canada’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2024-25).
The 2026 All-Star Game will air on NBC after a 23-year run on TNT and will coincide with NBC’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina.
