Steph Curry helped revolutionize the game of basketball. Both on and off the court.
The Warriors superstar will suit up for his 11th NBA All-Star Game on Sunday at Chase Center, an event with a new twist that he helped influence.
Curry spoke with The San Francisco Standard's Tim Kawakami on the latest episode of "The TK Show" podcast, where he was asked about his role in helping NBA commissioner Adam Silver re-format the mid-season event.
"I actually went to the NBA offices this summer, kind of on my own, I haven't been there in a long time," Curry told Kawakami. "As Adam Silver has positioned his brand, as he should, like as a partner [with] the players and his ability to have an open-door policy. I didn't go in there thinking I was talking about the All-Star Game, I know because we were hosting and it was in the Bay he wanted my input, but I went to talk about something else and that kind of came up, as just being a sounding board.
"He didn't have any ideas at that time, and my advice was it's not a bad thing to change it up entirely and try something new, knowing you can always come back to the traditional format if whatever you decide doesn't work. And then spitballing a bunch of different ideas to try and shorten the game a little bit, create a different kind of scenario where you can try and inspire some competition. Obviously it comes down to the players, whether you play or not, but I like where it's at. It's going to be different, it's going to be critiqued, and that's kind of what you want."
The new All-Star Game format will be tournament-style, consisting of four teams of eight players, three made up of the 24 All-Stars with the fourth being the winning team from Friday's Rising Stars tournament.
TNT analysts and honorary general managers Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal and Kenny Smith drafted their teams from the pool of NBA All-Stars, while Candace Parker will serve as GM of the Rising Stars team.
Golden State Warriors
Curry was drafted to Team Shaq, alongside Boston's Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, Phoenix's Kevin Durant, Los Angeles Clippers' James Harden, Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James, Milwaukee's Damian Lillard and Dallas' Anthony Davis, who was a recent scratch from the event after suffering an adductor strain.
🌟 The 2025 #NBAAllStar squads are set! 🌟
— NBA (@NBA) February 7, 2025
Team Chuck, Team Kenny and Team Shaq will be joined by the #CastrolRisingStars champions in the mini-tournament on Sunday, Feb. 16 at 8pm/et on TNT. pic.twitter.com/khZnI8Wj8v
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Two teams will play in one semifinal game, while the other two teams play in the other. The first team to reach or surpass 40 points in each matchup wins and advances to the championship.
Players on the championship-winning team each are awarded $125,000 while players on the runner-up team are awarded $50,000 and $25,000 for players on the other two teams.
Silver also spoke exclusively with Kawakami in a recent Q&A column, where he was asked about Curry's input and why he thought a format change was important.
"I think we know we have to partner with the players on the All-Star Game," Silver told Kawakami. "We recognize you can’t turn the clock back. All-Star’s been reimagined in every major league sport at this point. And I wanted to take the opportunity of Steph stopping by to say, “What’s the format that you would like to see that you think other All-Star players would like to see to create more of an entertaining and competitive game for the fans?”
"And he said from his standpoint that maybe breaking up the game a bit, shorter games, multiple games, he thought was certainly of interest to him and he thought would be of interest to other players as well. So we spoke to Steph, we spoke to many other perennial All-Stars, worked directly with Andre Iguodala at the Players Association, and came up with a format that I’m very hopeful will work."
Curry and his fellow All-Stars will take the floor at Chase Center on Sunday, with the first semifinal matchup tipping off at 5:20 p.m. PT.
