Stephen A. IS HAPPY with the NBA All-Star Game 🗣️ ‘You can thank Wembanyama!’ | First Take

The 75th NBA All-Star Game. This year features a new format, the USA vs. the World.

This is the main event. For the win, they've got it!

LeBron, Logo Braun, Fox for the win! Logo Braun! Games 1 and 2 have delivered. Straight cash for Kawhi! Team World is eliminating a dominant effort from the USA Stars team. They will win the 75th NBA All-Star Game.

All-new All-Star Game format Sunday night. The effort was seen all throughout the tournament. Three out of the four games came down to the wire, which made for must-see TV. Team stars made up of young talent like Anthony Edwards came out with the win in the final game over the OGs, and Ant-Man says he can get used to this new format.

I know they ain't gonna really like taking what I'm saying, but I like this format. I think it makes us compete, because it's only 12 minutes, and the three different teams separate the guys and I think it was really good

All right, so Anthony Edwards said it right there He loves it a lot of criticism about the all-star game going into all-star weekend perk I'll start with you. Did the NBA fix the all-star game?

You damn right they did you damn right they did and You damn right they did. And look, part of it is what we think, but as long as the fans accept it, we're in 2026. This is about the fans. As soon as the All-Star Game was over, I went and looked on social media because I wanted to get their reactions. And no one had a damn thing to say about it because guys were competing.

That was the biggest knock over the last few seasons or several years should I say was guys not competing at a high level. Last night we saw that. Yesterday guys were playing defense, guys were running the floor, guys were competing, guys wanted to win and it started with Victor Wimbyamba setting the damn tone, Anthony Edwards following suit,

and when you can get an all-star game where Kawhi Leonard is competing and playing at his highest level, you know you doing something.

Stephen A., I see you agreeing right there. Go ahead, Stephen A.

No, no, no, I am. I'm gonna let Wendy go first. I ahead, Stephen A. No, no, no. I am. I'm going to let Wendy go first. I mean, I'm going to let Wendy go first. Go ahead, Wendy.

I'm a captain.

Go ahead, Wendy.

Yeah, you know, Amina, David Stern used to say that, you know, whenever there was a big problem that the NBA was facing, that you would rely on the greatness of the talent that was playing in the NBA. And that's essentially what the NBA did here to solve this problem, or at least go a long way to solve the problem. They had to do some things. Number one, they had to create two NBA teams.

One, they called it Stars and Strikes, but really it was Olds and Youngs. Okay, they put the young guys on one team and the old guys on the next, okay? Then they leaned on the patriotism thing by saying world versus the United States. And so and they did something important. They put the young guys

in the first game because they knew that the young guys would potentially have more, you know, you know, you know, they want to react to that situation more. But even with that, they still needed one more thing. They still needed the players to care. And Victor Wembenyama did it. You know, the world team did not have their best squad, guys. Shea Gildas Alexander was out. Giannis was out. And Julka Doncic and Nikola Jokic only played five minutes. And then they shut it down. But they had Victor Wembenyama. And Victor Wembenyama arrived in LA and said, I'm going to care about this, and I'm going to make everybody

care about this. And they had the Youngs on the other side. So Stephen A, when Wembenyama came out from the opening tip and scored the first five points, and they actually ran a play off the jump ball. You ever seen a play off the jump ball in the All-Star game, and they also made it 12-minute games. So urgency was forced.

So they had to set this recipe to get it, to get everybody engaged. But once they were engaged, the greatness of the players and the greatness of the game came through. We still need to work on it. The Olds ended up playing three straight games, and they were gassed by the end.

We're going to work with the format. The World Team didn't have their best squad, but everybody came together, the management, the international players, the youngs and the olds, and gave us a great Saturday afternoon of basketball.

Wendy, let me tell you something. They don't need much work. We got what we've been asking for, effort. That's all. If they had been giving us this effort, none of these changes would have been necessary. I don't have a problem if you go away from this particular format in terms of three players, or three teams rather, and you go back to a one game for 48 minutes.

I don't have a problem with it. All anybody was asking for was effort. And yes, you can thank Wim Binyama because he showed up, scored the first five points. He was making his presence felt and letting everybody know, letting the world know. You know what? People may have been lackadaisical in the past. That ends now. We're going to take this seriously. And major, major, major props to Team USA, you know,

whether it's the Stars or the Stripes responding the way they did, whether it was De'Aaron Fox hitting the game winner, whether it was Steph Curry on the sidelines cheering, whether it was LeBron James doing his thing, who had a good game, all right? We end up accumulating about 15 points and playing with effort and making his jump shots. Kawhi Leonard looked like a superstar. I mean, my God, if he could do that for the Clippers come playoff time. We'd be having you might be having a different conversation. This brother was sensational. You saw that and of course Ant-Man my absolute favorite player in the NBA him and Steph Curry put on a show as well but in the end what it comes down to is the effort. They hustled on defense. They fought for

calls. They scrapped for rebounds. They were doing all of these things and that's all you are asking for. You weren't even asking for the kind of effort that you're going to get during a game certainly not during a playoffs or anything like that but what we were saying was damn we see y'all playing in summer in the summertime working out and y'all play harder than than you do for an all-star game. That is utterly ridiculous and so whoever was the provoc, the impetus for what we saw Sunday night,

major, major props to them. We can give it to women, Yama. We needed somebody from international play. When you say USA, you know that patriotism is going to kick in, because you know the other teams are going to go against you. They're going to do what they can to beat you, to embarrass you, et cetera, et cetera, if you're lackadaisical. What USA reminded, whether it was the Stars or the Stripes, yo, this is where basketball is at.

Y'all come over here to play. We don't go over there to play. Remember who the hell we are. And that's all you were asking for. So guess what, Wendy? to you know, there's not a lot of effort that needs to go into fixing what we saw yesterday. It was what we saw prior to yesterday.

We saw effort man. We saw guys that actually cared a little bit. That's all we've been asking for nothing more and they gave it to us yesterday props to them. But even if they had said it just so and aunt hadn't responded to Victor setting the challenge, we wouldn't have

got it. It took everything being set and Victor delivering and Ant answering and then the rest of the team following him. It took a lot of cooks in the kitchen to create that dish, but the dish was good. I wish I could just rely on them to give the effort because it's the right thing to do, but Stephen A, we've seen that doesn't work. They had to do all these elements to get him to care.

I'm not saying they didn't. I'm simply saying that what we saw yesterday is it worked. That's what we got. So we're good with it. That's all we wanted. That's it.

That's all I'm saying.

Look guys, you had Wemby that set the tone. You had Wemby that set the tone. You had Ant-Man that won MVP. Kawhi Leonard exploded for 31 points in one of those games. Perk, I wanna bring it back to you. Who stood out the most, though, on the floor?

Look, Wemby was great. You know, I gotta give him his flowers for setting the tone, but Anthony Edwards was responding. Got me thinking a little bit. That's who stood out. He got me thinking bigger picture.

Not only the same response he gave last night to Wimpy, yesterday, excuse me, to Wimpy, I need him to give that response this last part of the season and in the postseason in the Western Conference. Here's why I say that. The Western Conference is wide open right now. With the injuries to OKC that they're dealing with, you know, J-Dub is out again because his hamstring, SGA with the

abdominal strain, the kid AJ Mitchell, he's out right now. And then the injuries that you have to the Denver Nuggets. I'm looking at Anthony Edwards and I'm saying the out right now. And then the injuries that you have to the Denver Nuggets, I'm looking at Anthony Edwards and I'm saying the time is now. You have the core group that went with you last year to the conference finals. Julius Randle is playing with a chip on his shoulder because he felt like he should have been an all-star. Rudy Go is is still in the defensive defensive player of the year conversation

Mike Conley just got back J McDaniels We know what he could bring to the table when he's at his at his top could be one of the best two-way players in The game so I'm looking at Ant-Man and I'm saying the same response that you gave to Wimby I need you to keep that same energy when it comes to the like of SGA. And so when I think about this league

and I think about guys and being competitive, I want Anthony Edwards to be jealous. I want him to be jealous of SGA. I want him to sit back and say, if you could do this, why can't I? I want him to go out there and capitalize on the moment

and go get what's his, especially in a wide open Western conference. especially in a wide open Western conference.

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