The 2025 NBA All-Star weekend was held at Chase Center in San Francisco and has drawn mixed reviews from fans and pundits. Most dubbed it one of the worst All-Star weekends in years, but fans were treated to numerous NBA 2025 highlights and basketball action (though not the serious kind) nonetheless.
The festivities started with the Rising Stars competition, Skills Challenge, Three-Point Shootout, and Slam Dunk Contest. The winners of the Rising Stars got to play with the big boys on Sunday (though the NBA 2025 odds were stacked against them to win the mini-tournament).
The All-Star Game featured a new format where, instead of the usual East versus West matchup, four teams named after the four analysts on NBA on TNT (Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, Shaquille O’Neal, and Candace Parker) competed for the trophy.
In case you missed it, SBOTOP is here to recap what happened this weekend.
Curry leads Shaq’s OG team to victory in new format
Stephen Curry added another piece of silverware to his already large trophy case after winning the NBA All-Star Game MVP or the Kobe Bryant Award last Sunday. The Warriors guard amassed 20 points, 10 rebounds, two assists, three steals, and six three-pointers in two games.
Curry recorded eight points, six rebounds, one assist, one steal, and two three-pointers to help Shaq’s OGs beat Candace’s Rising Stars 42-35 in the first semi-final. They went up against Chuck’s Global Stars, who defeated Kenny’s Young Stars 41-32 in the second semi-final, in the final round and won 41-25, as Curry had 12 points, four rebounds, one assist, two steals, and four three-pointers.
In the MVP voting, Curry received 12 of 14 votes. Jayson Tatum and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander each received a vote. Some fans argued that Tatum (winner of the 2023 edition) deserved the Kobe Bryant Award over Curry since he led Shaq’s OGs in the final with 15 points, three rebounds, two assists, and the game-winning dunk.
Curry won his first All-Star Game MVP honours in 2022 when he dropped 50 points, including 48 points on 16 three-pointers made, to lead Team LeBron to a 163-160 over Team Durant. Warriors supporters saw their franchise player win another prestigious trophy.
Mac McClung completes Slam Dunk three-peat
Mac McClung became the first player in NBA history to complete a three-peat in the Slam Dunk contest, beating the likes of Stephon Castle, Matas Buzelis, and Andre Jackson Jr. The Magic guard was flawless last weekend, notching perfect scores of 50 in all four of his jaw-dropping dunks.
Nate Robinson is the only other player to win the Slam Dunk contest three times, winning it in 2006 and then completing a two-peat in 2009 and 2010.
McClung wowed the crowd instantly on his first dunk by jumping over the car parked in the lane, taking the ball, and doing a reverse behind-the-head dunk. His second was a spinning, no-look dunk after jumping over a person holding the ball.
He went up against Stephon Castle in the final round. McClung scored another 50 by dunking two balls at once, with one person holding one ball at the top of the ladder and another holding the ball while on a spinning hoverboard.
The 26-year-old high-flyer needed to be nearly perfect to top Castle, who scored 49.6 with his first dunk, and McClung didn’t disappoint. In his final dunk, the 6’2” McClung jumped over 6’11” Evan Mobley, took the ball from him, and tapped the rim with the ball before flushing it home.
Herro wins three-point contest, Cavs duo triumphs in Skills Challenge
Tyler Herro walked away as the three-point contest champion, as Damian Lillard fell short in his three-peat bid after losing in the first round. The Heat guard advanced to the final round by becoming one of the top three scorers in the first round alongside Darius Garland and Buddy Hield. Herro ultimately prevailed in the final round with 24 points, while Hield and Garland scored 23 and 19.
Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama raised eyebrows when they tried to bend the rules during the Skills Challenge last Saturday. Instead of hitting shots in assigned areas, the Spurs duo tried to exploit a loophole in the rules by tossing the balls off the rack toward the baseline to get through the course as quickly as possible, much to the disappointment of fans.
Paul and Wembanyama were disqualified for cheating. Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley ultimately prevailed after beating the Warriors tandem of Moses Moody and Draymond Green in the final round with a time of 1:00.3.
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