Back in the day, there was an actual rivalry between the East and West. That’s all gone now and having it is pointless, since players move from conference to conference every few years.
Instead of having East vs. West, we should have a US vs. World game instead as the main event on Sunday.
There would be actual pride on the line, since the top superstars in the league are non-US players with the exception of Curry. Top 5 players include 1 American and 4 international players.
I know this would create issues because a lot of the would be all-star players suddenly wouldn’t be able to participate in the game and I doubt sponsors like Nike, Adidas and Reebok would allow that kind of thing to go through.
But it would be 100x more interesting to watch than what we saw last year, which was an abomination of an all-star game.
I wish we made it like baseball used to have it. East vs West where the winner gets finals home court advantage. There’s now a huge incentive to win the game for top stars. How often do two one seeds compete at the end of the season for finals advantage? At least this way we have a good way to get the best out of the best players in each conference.