The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association announced a new format for the 2025 NBA All-Star Game in the San Francisco Bay Area. The reimagined event will take place on Sunday, Feb. 16 at Chase Center, home of the Golden State Warriors, and air at 8 p.m. ET on TNT.
For the first time, the NBA All-Star Game will feature a mini-tournament with four teams and three games. Two teams will meet in one semifinal (Game 1), and the remaining two teams will meet in the other semifinal (Game 2). The winning teams from Game 1 and Game 2 will advance to face each other in the championship (Game 3). For each game, the winner will be the first team to reach or surpass 40 points.
Each team will have eight players and be named for a TNT NBA analyst. The 24 NBA All-Star selections will be divided evenly into three teams, with the rosters drafted by TNT’s Inside the NBA commentators and honorary team general managers Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, and Kenny Smith. The three analysts will make their respective picks for Team Chuck, Team Shaq, and Team Kenny live on TNT in the NBA All-Star Draft, which will be conducted on Thursday, Feb. 6 just before the network’s doubleheader that night.
The fourth team will be the winning team from the championship game of the Castrol Rising Stars, the annual showcase of top first- and second-year NBA players and NBA G League standouts, which will be played on Friday, Feb. 14 during NBA All-Star 2025. TNT analyst and WNBA legend Candace Parker will serve as honorary GM of the Castrol Rising Stars champion, known as Team Candace.
The four NBA All-Star Game head coaches will come from the coaching staffs of the teams with the best regular-season record in each conference through games played on Sunday, Feb. 2. The head coach of the leading Eastern Conference team and the head coach of the leading Western Conference team will each coach an NBA All-Star team. An assistant coach from one of those staffs will serve as head coach of the Castrol Rising Stars champion, and an assistant coach from the other staff will coach the remaining All-Star team.
The four teams participating in the NBA All-Star Game will compete for a prize pool of $1.8 million, with each player on the championship-winning team receiving $125,000, each player on the second-place team receiving $50,000 and each player on the third- and fourth-place teams receiving $25,000.
Starters for the 2025 NBA All-Star Game were selected by fans, current NBA players and a media panel. Fans accounted for 50% of the vote to determine the starters, while players and media accounted for 25% each.
After all votes were tallied, players were ranked in each conference by position (guard and frontcourt) within each of the three voting groups. Each player’s score was calculated by averaging his weighted rank from the fan votes, the player votes and the media votes. The two guards and three frontcourt players with the best score in each conference were named NBA All-Star Game starters.
Each player’s score was weighted based on 50% for fan vote, 25% for players vote, and 25% for media vote. The formula to determine a player’s score is (Fan Rank * 2 + Player Rank + Media Rank)/4.