It is almost the same chorus every time. The All-Star Game NBA has a more tempted year to renew itself to revive interest around a recipe that takes less and less. A new format, one more, has been tested, without any real enthusiasm, both from players and spectators or followers.
The debate on how to relaunch the event has become a refrain. In France, it is almost the opposite. What if the prestigious All-Star Weekend was taking a look at his distant cousin of the National Basketball League?
Far from a mini-readable mini-tournoi and the incessant cuts that cut any pace, the French stars match offered a nice show and a suspense end of the match, to the delight of a Bercy fills for the 23rd consecutive year, a record for a collective sports meeting in the Parisian grounds.
Alexis Rambur, one of the maestros of the event as Deputy Director General of Sport Plus Consulting, the organizer of the event, dismisses the parallel between the LNB and the NBA model. “” There, it's an all-star weekend, it lasts much longer, we are quite punctual »Starts the old playmaker.
Brief The players has changed everything in France
But Alexis Rambur recalls that the Betclic Elite version has also experienced the same problems as the All-Star Game of “La Grande League”. And that she knew how to find the parade largely there.
“We, on our side, should not believe that the guys arrive and start playing” he says. “” In 2018, we had a fairly catastrophic edition, where the players put themselves from the start of the match in a bad 'Mood'. They started to play without knowing too much if I defend, I do not defend … And from the first actions, the first shot of the match I believe that it is a shot from the midfielder of the playmaker. These are images that we now show them every year in a short meeting in the morning of the match. »»
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkul_fodfwo
The NBA too, accompanied by the players' union tried to raise awareness of the selected players by bringing them together a few hours before the match, in order to ask them more “efforts” had revealed Journalist Chris Haynes.
From this bad experience of 2018, the French All-Star Game held a lesson from it. “” When we saw this edition, we have set up several small operations »Evokes us Alexis Rambur. “” We brought together a small steering committee to improve the All-Star Game, there were players, coaches, there were a small panel of personalities close to the basketball with which we thought. From this, several remarks came out. The coaches told us that they had no time to take charge of their teams, that it would be not bad to impose training. The players, they told us that they brought their families and that we had to make an effort, so we created a 'Family Lounge' which did not exist until then. »»
Game and stake
This kind of ” small attentions As Alexis Rambur sums up them necessarily draws up a limit between France and the United States, where the daily life of an NBA player between luxury hotels and private plane travel differs in less proportions between a regular season match and the All-Star Weekend.
“” It is not the same context, you may not be able to educate players in the same way “Continues the Deputy Plus Consulting DEC which also evokes the contrast between a” small “room of Betclic Elite and the Accor Arena, one of the largest speakers in France. The premium of 1,500 euros per winning player is also without common measure with what the NBA can offer.
The players of the French championship are however confronted with certain same problems as their counterparts across the Atlantic. The All-Star Game takes place during the last week of December in France, in the middle of a week sometimes already occupied by the championship, even the European Cups for certain All-Stars. But the actors give the change in a clever mix between the pleasure match and the desire to be up to par.
“We tell them that we know that they are chaining the games, some are coming to the day of their Euroleague meeting, we know that there is fatigue” confirms Alexis Rambur. “We don't want a 100%match, it's not a championship match, that's not what we ask. But the public comes to see the cream of French basketball cream and you have to have a minimum of intensity. First, so as not to have stupid injuries. And so that it looks like something and they have fun. I find that the message is really good. The teams can be tickled, carries, room. And arrived in the second half, the guys are starting to pass the second and we have fourth quarters disputed. But there is a little job that has been done to get there. »»
And this work is bearing fruit, with four of the last five games concluded after extension, the 2024 edition concluded with the Mikegasque Mike James (ex-Suns and Nets) refusing to fold the game to () to offer five minutes of additional happiness.
“” It's great, it's James' competitive side that comes out, it's stronger than it Enthuses Alexis Rambur. “” We are really lucky. And you feel that the guys have fun. »»
Contest of Un-Contre-un, France vs remains of the world …
As in one of the tracks mentioned by the NBA in recent years, an unprecedented un-confer-contained competition, and used as a peace judgment in the Skills Challenge final between TJ Shorts (Paris) and Elie Okobo (Monaco), two of the Stars of the League, from the start of the evening. “This idea of a-one could seem a little crazy, and made the players hesitate when they have been selected” admits Alexis Rambur. “” I spent time with them on the phone to explain the rules to them well, that these rules, they did not come out of a hat like that. As a former player, I understand what it is to be thrown into the arena to make an an-one. Because there is an injury side obviously that has been mentioned. There is also a pride side, you can take a crossover, slide in front of everyone … and the guys, they joined. They played the game. When you manage to tickle them, to play on this rope, I think that is where we may have a little ahead of the All-Star Weekend NBA. »»
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaxvz9TOWJE
This rope is not the only one to return among the possible improvement tracks for the NBA, that of a match highly awaited by certain supporters between the best American players and those of the rest of the world. A format exploited by the All-Star Game LNB since 1992, and which has been one of the rare constants of the event since then.
“” It is not trivial because guys are already playing all year round, there is always this little French pride against foreigners Consider Alexis Rambur. “” Naturally, you imply the public, you embark on it when the French start to take the upper hand, it grows. But guys opposite, strangers, they say 'ah yeah, is that like that? Well no, we answer '. And inevitably, it is something that is funny to see and that adds a little spice. Everything that lacks an All-Star Game NBA without flavor, blocked in the spiral of any. And which does not happen to generate rivalry to revive its competitiveness.
