The NBA All-Star Game was once one of the highlight matches of the year, even though it didn’t count for much other than bragging rights. The best went up against the best to determine which team had the superior group of players. But over the last few years, it has started to lose that allure, and Kevin Garnett has blamed LeBron James for it.
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Garnett, a 15-time All-Star, went on his podcast to claim that the demise can be traced back to 2016, when James passed the ball during the game while Kobe Bryant was guarding him. To the Big Ticket’s point, the Black Mamba was irate that he didn’t get a chance to go one-on-one with LeBron for the fans’ sake. He feels the entire All-Star game experience has been off since, referencing how the league brings in Street ballers to participate in the dunk contest to try and keep people’s attention.
However, Carmelo Anthony doesn’t agree with the Celtics legend. He defended Bron on a recent edition of the 7pm in Brooklyn podcast and revealed why he thinks Garnett made that claim in the first place.
“He’s only saying that because at that moment, of what we know and how we looked at the All-Star game like was, ‘The stars rise to the occasion,'” Anthony began. “We just know this is what everybody want. We have to give it to them.”
Anthony then pulled back the curtain a bit and admitted that when he came into the league, it was explained to him that the players would all coast for the first three quarters before turning it up in the 4th.
“Now everybody in cahoots because it’s almost like a wrestling match. It’s like, ‘Alright look. First two, three quarters. Let me get my sh** off.’ Let’s go have some fun. Fourth quarter come, we all agree that we getting to it. That’s the information that was passed down to us,” Anthony continued. He had a big smile on his face as if he recalled the exact moment that he was informed of how the ASG plays out.
Melo decodes Kevin Garnett’s comments about LeBron ‘ruining’ the NBA All-Star Game pic.twitter.com/bc1hUsV8AD
— 7PM in Brooklyn (@7PMinBrooklyn) January 26, 2026
“So when he didn’t do that, people started looking like, ‘Oh sh**. Alright bet. Oh Bron f**ed the All-Star game up. Oh Bron f**ed the dunk contest up because Bron’s never been in the dunk contest. Bron f**ed the 3-point contest up.’ He gonna get blamed for every single thing.”
The truth probably sits somewhere in the middle. LeBron didn’t “break” the All-Star Game with one pass, but moments like that did signal a shift. The league stopped pretending the game meant anything competitively, and the players leaned into the exhibition part even harder.
Once everyone knows it’s scripted energy until the fourth quarter, the magic kind of fades. Fans can feel that. You can’t fake stakes, even when the talent is ridiculous. What’s really changed is the relationship between stars and expectations. Older generations took pride in showing out every second.
This era is more aware, more careful, and more business-minded. That’s not evil, it’s just different. But if the All-Star Game wants its juice back, it won’t come from blaming LeBron. It will come from giving players a real reason to care again, or accepting that the event is more content than competition now.
