The NBA has tried to fix its All-Star Game for years, and on Sunday (Feb. 15) in Inglewood it finally got a version players seemed to care about. Anthony Edwards won All-Star MVP, and the Kobe Bryant Trophy, as his Stars team won a three-team round-robin that the AP says “appeared to be played at a higher level of competitiveness than most All-Star Games in recent years.”
The new USA-versus-World setup, the league’s fourth format in four years, put two teams of American All-Stars and one international squad through four 12-minute games at the Los Angeles Clippers’ Intuit Dome, hoping to stoke nationalistic passion in an Olympic year, per AP. It played out as a series of finishes. Edwards forced overtime in the opener with a 3-pointer, and Scottie Barnes ended it with a game-winning 3 to beat the World. Then De’Aaron Fox hit a 3 at the buzzer to give the Stripes the second game over the Stars.
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Kawhi Leonard, playing in front of his hometown crowd, scored 31 points in the third game, AP reported, making his first seven shots, five of them 3-pointers, and pushed the Stripes past the World with a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 3.5 seconds left. The Stars then took the rematch in the championship game, 47-21, with Edwards scoring eight points. Edwards credited the French star who got the whole day going:
We chose to compete today, and we came out on top. I ain’t going to lie, Wemby set the tone. He came out and played hard, and we had to follow that.
Anthony Edwards, AP, via the Nashua Telegraph
Victor Wembanyama led the World in scoring in both its games with 14 and 19 points, despite going 0-2, and said afterward the game was “better than last year, in my opinion.” LeBron James, who made his record 21st All-Star appearance, joked about the veterans’ early win, per AP. The Clippers crowd booed him and Luka Doncic whenever they touched the ball in the first two games, though James had said earlier the setting meant “nothing” because it was “not our building.”
The weekend around it
The Los Angeles area hosted for a record seventh time, and ABC7’s recap of the weekend notes the event began Friday with the celebrity game at the Kia Forum and the Rising Stars at the Intuit Dome. On Saturday, Keshad Johnson won the slam dunk contest, Damian Lillard edged Devin Booker in the 3-point contest and Team Knicks won the Shooting Stars competition. John Tesh played “Roundball Rock” with his band before tip-off to mark the league’s return to NBC, which also explains the afternoon start: the network airs the Winter Olympics at night. Super Bowl LX and the Olympics’ opening ceremony made it a week of spectacles.
The All-Star game moves to Phoenix in February 2027, and Phoenix will be hoping the league’s experiment sticks.
- MVP
- Anthony Edwards (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
- Final
- Stars 47, Stripes 21
- Venue
- Intuit Dome, Inglewood, Calif.
- Next year
- Phoenix, February 2027
Added to the High Grailed archive on October 12, 2026.
