Every season, the NBA takes a break to indulge its fans with a series of showcases featuring the biggest stars of the league—the NBA All-Star Weekend. Unfortunately, interest in this once much-anticipated basketball event is dropping. Last season, in fact, the NBA had its second-lowest All-Star viewership in history.
To be fair, NBA All-Star Weekend isn’t necessarily dead; it just needs saving. And the league took positive steps this time around with a compelling Rising Stars Challenge on Saturday and a fun but competitive All-Star Game on Monday.
But there’s more tinkering to be done, and the NBA could borrow a page from a women’s league on the distaff side: Unrivaled. Founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, Unrivaled is a professional 3-on-3 women’s basketball league launched in 2025 to give elite women’s basketball players a high-level domestic alternative to playing overseas during the WNBA offseason.
Unrivaled Basketball League Featuring a One-on-One Battle Inspires NBA Stars
This year, Unrivaled took a break from its usual 3-on-3 format and switched to a 1-on-1 setting. Nobody expected anything, but it definitely got a lot of people’s attention, including NBA stars.
One of them is Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown, who was deeply inspired by Unrivaled. Brown, an All-Star starter this season, believes that having players go head-to-head in a one-on-one style in the All-Star Game will be a breath of fresh air. The 2024 Finals MVP admired the tournament and said he’d love to “challenge all of them”—Luka Doncic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and even Victor Wembanyama.
Even Anthony Edwards subtly hinted he’s up for that challenge after saying he can guard Kyrie Irving one-on-one. Of course, knowing Ant-Man, he probably isn’t backing down from any challenge, maybe even an actual one-on-one match during NBA All-Star Weekend.
Why the NBA Still Won’t Give Fans the One-on-One Tourney
For sure, this setting has been thrown into a board meeting at some point, yet the league’s higher-ups are still not budging. For fans, this would bring back the entertainment value of All-Star Weekend. However, it seems like it’s up to the guys who will participate.
As they say, NBA players have everything to lose in a one-on-one challenge. In this age of social media, people will have a field day giving hell to whoever loses in these showcase games. Imagine the reaction if LeBron James, considered by some as the GOAT, loses to an upstart like Paolo Banchero, or if Kevin Durant, viewed as one of the best ever, gets roasted by an emerging talent like Cade Cunningham.
Incidentally, this sort of happened in Unrivaled’s one-on-one showcase when women’s basketball golden girl and tournament first seed Paige Bueckers got dominated by Chelsea Gray, 11-2, in the quarterfinals.
For that reason alone, seeing this kind of event in NBA All-Star Weekend, or in any setting, seems like a pipe
