Los Angeles got a full three night sprint of basketball culture, noise, celebrity, and real competition by the time Sunday wrapped. The 2026 NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles felt like it actually had stakes again. Intuit Dome was the center of gravity, NBC and Peacock had the broadcast, and the league leaned into the new USA vs World concept for Sunday.
Friday and Saturday do what they always do, give fans the chaos of the celebrity game, the rising star energy, the viral moments of 3pt competitions and dunk contests, and the Shooting Stars challenge replacing the skills challenge.
NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles Recap
Night 1, Friday, Celebrity Game Energy, Rising Stars Drama
Friday opened with the Ruffles NBA All Star Celebrity Game, and it was the kind of mix that only happens in LA, musicians, actors, creators, athletes, executives, and NBA names all sharing the floor while the crowd treats every made shot like it could turn into a clip. Team Giannis beat Team Anthony, 65 to 58, with Rome Flynn taking MVP again after putting up 17 points and 4 assists.
The box score headline was Tacko Fall doing Tacko Fall things, 20 points, 21 rebounds, 5 blocks, basically turning the paint into a no fly zone for long stretches. Jeremy Lin hit one of the defining shots of the night, a late 8 point bomb that swung the game, and he finished with 12 points and 15 rebounds, which is an absurd celebrity game stat line when you actually say it out loud.
Team Anthony had real pushback though. Keenan Allen led them with 18 points, Adrien Nuñez added 13, and the game stayed within striking distance until that late stretch where the big shot and the extra possessions started to stack up. The celebrity game always has a few moments that feel like a parody of basketball, but this one also had stretches where the pace was legit and the effort was real, especially once the score tightened in the fourth.
Then Friday night turned into actual hoops with the Castrol Rising Stars, and the new generation came in hungry. The format ran through four teams, Team Melo, Team Vince, Team T Mac, Team Austin, and the whole thing played like short, high pressure bursts where one run decides your night.
The results were clean and dramatic. Game 1, Team Melo beat Team Austin 40 to 34. Game 2, Team Vince beat Team T Mac 41 to 36. Then the championship ended with Team Vince over Team Melo, 25 to 24.
That final was a one possession knife fight to the end. VJ Edgecombe closed it at the line, finishing with 6 points, 2 rebounds, 1 steal, and scoring the last four points to ice the win. Dylan Harper put up the game high 8 points with two threes, plus 5 boards and an assist, and he looked like he was trying to turn every touch into an exclamation point.
If you were watching closely, Friday night was also where the weekend started telling you what the theme was going to be, the young guys are not interested in jogging through this, they are trying to take ownership of the weekend in real time. You could feel it in how hard possessions were played, and you could see it in the way the celebrations hit, like these guys were treating the Rising Stars trophy like it mattered because to them, it does.
Night 2, Saturday, Shooters, Trick Shots, And A Dunk Contest That Had A Real Scoreboard
Saturday was stacked, and it started with the State Farm 3 Point Contest. Damian Lillard came in with the story already written, he is hurt, not playing NBA games this season after an Achilles tear, but he is healthy enough to show up in a Portland Trail Blazers uniform and do the one thing he always does when the moment turns into a target, he gets surgical.
Lillard won the final round with a 29, edging Devin Booker’s 27, and Kon Knueppel took third in the final with 17. The first round was loaded too. Booker led it with a 30, Knueppel and Lillard both advanced at 27, and Donovan Mitchell barely missed the cut at 24 after starting hot. Norman Powell hit one of the logo balls and still did not advance, while Tyrese Maxey, Jamal Murray, and Bobby Portis fell short of the pace needed.
The details matter here because the contest showed why it is still one of the best events of the weekend when it is done right. Lillard put up 56 points across the two rounds, and in the final he went 21 for 27 overall, including one of the two logo shots, which are worth three points each. Booker was cooking, two perfect racks, and he was right there until the money ball rack in the right corner betrayed him with three misses to end it.
Then the Kia Shooting Stars came back after a long hiatus, and the league leaned into theme teams. Beginning in 2026, the NBA removed the traditional Skills Challenge and introduced the Shooting Stars competition as part of the NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles. The updated event features four teams made up of two active NBA players and one retired standout. Teams compete in a relay-style format that combines multiple shooting and skill-based segments, culminating in a final round where the top performers battle to claim the title.
Team Knicks won it, and they won it loud, putting up 47 in the final round to beat Team Cameron’s 38. Team Knicks was Jalen Brunson, Karl Anthony Towns, Allan Houston, with Rick Brunson as the passer, and it felt like the whole building understood what was happening once the five 4 point shots started dropping, this was no longer a gimmick, it was a real scoreboard.
Team Cameron was Jalen Johnson, Kon Knueppel, Corey Maggette, and Maggette went 3 for 3 on the long range 4 point looks in the final, which is ridiculous at any age, let alone doing it as the legend spot in a timed event. Team Knicks still blew past it, Brunson hit what became the winner, Houston knocked in another at the buzzer just to make sure the clip was clean.
The early round numbers also set the scene. Team Knicks led the first round with 31, Team Cameron advanced with 24, while Team Harper and Team All Star got bounced at 18 and 16. The participants list alone tells you why the building was into it, Team All Star had Scottie Barnes, Chet Holmgren, Richard Hamilton, Team Harper had Dylan Harper with Ron Harper Sr and Ron Harper Jr, and the Knicks team was basically a New York reunion with two current All Stars and a franchise icon.
Then came the AT&T Slam Dunk Contest.
This is where people either check out or lock in, depending on if the contest has creativity and makes.
This year, it was….. alright. Keshad Johnson won it for the Miami Heat, outpointing Spurs rookie Carter Bryant in the final round.
Bryant hit the only perfect 50 of the contest, a toss up into a between the legs finish that landed clean on the first attempt, and the building reacted like it was 2016 again for a second. But Johnson was steady. In the final round he scored 49.6 then 47.8, and that consistency carried him when Bryant followed the 50 with a 43.0 to finish second.
The participant list was a mix of names, Carter Bryant for the Spurs, Jaxson Hayes for the Lakers, Keshad Johnson for the Heat, Jase Richardson for the Magic.
Richardson had a scary moment, hitting his head on the floor after a miss, and still kept pushing through the round, which is the kind of moment that reminds you these are real athletes doing real stuff, even in the middle of a show.
Realistically, we want bigger names participating in this event. Give me some amateur or pro dunkers outside of the NBA like Jordan Kilgannon against the best D-League dunker (Mac Mclung) against some actual NBA names that people are excited to see. No disrespect to the participants this year, but we as fans are sick of not getting some well-known NBA stars on the dunk contest.
This was definitely the most disappointing part of NBA All Star Weekend in Los Angeles.
Night 3, Sunday, USA Stars, USA Stripes, World, And A Format That Finally Created Tension
Sunday was the main event, and it came with the biggest change, the 75th NBA All Star Game debuted a new USA vs World format built around three teams, USA Stars, USA Stripes, and World.
The point of the format was simple, make it competitive, make it short enough to stay intense, and give players a reason to actually guard someone.
The rosters were built like a statement. USA Stars were the younger punch, Scottie Barnes, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Anthony Edwards, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Johnson, Tyrese Maxey, coached by J B Bickerstaff.
USA Stripes were the veteran weight class, Jaylen Brown, Jalen Brunson, Kevin Durant, De’Aaron Fox as an injury replacement for Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brandon Ingram as an injury replacement for Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Donovan Mitchell, coached by Mitch Johnson.
World was stacked, Deni Avdija, Luka Dončić, Nikola Jokić, Jamal Murray, Norman Powell, Alperen Sengun as an injury replacement for Shai Gilgeous Alexander, Pascal Siakam, Karl Anthony Towns, Victor Wembanyama, with Darko Rajaković coaching.
And right away, it actually worked.
The opening stretch produced a tight first game. Wembenyama beat Anthony Edwards at the tip and then raced down to the post and dunked less than 5 seconds into the game.
USA Stars beat World 37 to 35 in overtime. In a format like this, those two points feel like ten, because there is no time to recover from a cold stretch. The NBA’s live coverage framed it as an OT duel between Wembanyama and Edwards, and it set the tone for the whole night.
Game two was USA Stripes over USA Stars, 42 to 40, and it came with the kind of ending people actually remember. The NBA live blog called out Fox for the win after Edwards had hit a shot that looked like it might flip the result, which is exactly the kind of emotional swing this format was designed to create.
Game three had the World team on the brink and the Stripes needing to close, and it finished with USA Stripes beating World 48 to 45. Kawhi Leonard went off for 31 points in that game, including the winner, and the live blog basically stamped it as one of the signature performances of the night.
That eliminated World and set the championship as Stars versus Stripes.
Then the final was not close. USA Stars beat USA Stripes 47 to 21 to win the 2026 All Star Game championship. That margin is the part that jumps off the page, but the way it happened is what mattered. The Stars shot 62.5 percent, 20 for 32 from the field, and they never let the Stripes get comfortable.
Anthony Edwards took home the Kia NBA All Star Game MVP after scoring 32 points across the night’s games, and the NBA’s own recap photos and coverage made it clear he owned the weekend once Sunday hit its climax.
The live coverage also highlighted Victor Wembanyama as the tone setter for the format, with 33 combined points across his two games, and that part is real, his effort level made the game feel like something more than an exhibition.
What made Sunday feel different was not just that the games were close early, it was that the players acted like the possessions were supposed to mean something.
You saw it in the pace, in the defensive body language, the denial defense, the blocked shots from Wemby, in how quickly runs could end a game, and in how the crowd reacted when someone actually got a stop.
By the time the weekend ended, the story of All Star 2026 was not one single dunk or one single celebrity moment, it was that the whole weekend had a through line.
Friday gave you entertainment and young talent fighting for daylight, Saturday gave you real shooting pressure and a dunk contest with an actual scoreboard, and Sunday finally gave the league a format that created urgency from the first possession.
If you want the cleanest snapshot, it is this.
Team Giannis took the celebrity game, 65 to 58, with Rome Flynn as MVP and Tacko Fall putting up 20 and 21 like it was a joke.
Team Vince won Rising Stars with VJ Edgecombe closing at the line and Dylan Harper leading the final in points.
Damian Lillard won the three point contest with a 29 in the final over Devin Booker 27, and Lillard had 56 across the night.
Team Knicks won Shooting Stars with 47 in the final round. Keshad Johnson won the dunk contest, beating Carter Bryant, who still left with the only perfect 50 of the night.
And USA Stars took the championship, 47 to 21, with Anthony Edwards collecting MVP honors and the new format finally giving fans a reason to watch the ending instead of checking the score later.
Big shoutout to Wembenyama for setting the tempo in the 2026 NBA All Star games.
All we need now is an updated 3pt competition featuring a team of legends, a team of current stars, a team of world players, and a team of WNBA players too!
My picks would ideally be a team of three featuring the likes of former 3pt contest winners and the best 3pt shooters of all time.
Some of the names I’d love to see participate in a legends vs winners vs current stars would be Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, Kyle Korver, Klay Thompson, Dell Curry, JJ Redick, Peja Stojakovic, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Quentin Richardson, Tyler Herro, Karl Anthony Towns, Buddy Hield, Kevin Love, Jason Kapono, Eric Gordon, and we would of course have to keep Damian Lillard and Devin Booker in there too.
