A staple of the mid-season event for quite some time now has been the sight of 3-point king. Yet, as things stand that won’t be the case this year or at least, not from the start of the affair. What’s the deal with Steph Curry. Let’s find out.
Steph Curry won’t start the 2024 NBA All-Star Game
You read the right. For the first time in 10 years, Stephen Curry will not start at the NBA All-Star Game. While there has been no official word on why that is, what we can assume is that the Warriors’ record of 19-23 probably has something to do with it. Indeed, the team lost to the Sacramento Kings on Thursday night 134-133, a result that was hard to swallow as you can probably imagine. Incidentally, Curry finished second in fan voting, but player and media tabulations appear to have had a negative effect. In his stead, we will see Dallas’ Luka Doncic and Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander starting for the West. Where OKC’s star is concerned, he’s the man currently leading the league in 30-point games for the season. At this point, we have to imagine that Curry will be selected as an All-Star reserve, an announcement that will be made next week.
Steph Curry has some business to take care of
As much as it seems like Curry won’t be a starter for the game, that doesn’t mean he won’t be very much involved in All-Star Weekend. The 35-year-old was wearing a microphone during Thursday’s loss to Sacramento and was heard having a chat with teammate Brandin Podziemski about Sabrina Ionescu, who scored 37 points in the WNBA’s 3-point contest last summer. If you didn’t know, that tally surpassed Curry’s NBA 3-point contest best of 31. “I think I’ve got to challenge her,” Curry said. Needless to say, that challenge was accepted as Ionescu herself responded on social media: “Let’s getttttt it!! See ya at the 3 pt line.” Ionescu posed for a photo imitating Curry’s famous lights-out pose while holding her trophy at the WNBA All-Star event and challenged him to a “shoot out.”
The NBA All-Star Game is going back to move forward
One interesting thing to note about this year’s All-Star Game is that it will be reverting to the traditional East-vs.-West format, which was utilized in the first 66 NBA midseason classics. You will recall that over the last six seasons, we have seen a format wherein the leading vote-getters from each conference were selected as captains who were in turn allowed to draft their respective teams. Another tweak will be the removal of the “target score” aspect of the game which featured an untimed fourth quarter in the last four All-Star Games. It would appear that both aspects have been axed as the NBA attempts to revive interest in its All-Star Game, a need that has been stressed by league officials following last year’s catastrophic viewership numbers.
