Us and Them.

The NBA might divide -- for a day

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There may be only so many ways you can attempt to make an All-Star game relevant — or even interesting. The NFL sort of gave up on the Pro Bowl for that reason (not interesting), and MLB at one point tried to force relevance onto its All-Star Game by using it to decide which league got home-field advantage in the World Series (terrible idea, but it lasted 13 years).

For the NBA, the last straw on the whole conventional format came a year ago, when the one All-Star team beat the other — it doesn’t matter which one — by a final score of 211-186. This past weekend, the league tried again, using a four-team single-elimination “tournament” in which the first team to 40 points won each game.

Since NBAers can score at will and nobody plays defense on All-Star weekend, these games were over so quickly that the show’s producers had to lard the broadcast with all sorts of filler. I’m sure you noticed Kevin Hart, assuming you watched.

However! The league isn’t out of ideas. And there is one in the pipeline that has a real chance to work, even if it’s still at a highly imperfect state just this moment.