NBA: All-Star Game Rosters Just Fine At 12

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made some rumblings on Sunday about wanting to increase the size of the rosters for the All-Star Game after he had to make an injury replacement decision.

When asked specifically about expanding the rosters to 13 or perhaps even 15 players, Silver told ESPN Radio Sunday:

More from NBA

“I think that’s something that will get very strong consideration. I think that’s an issue that we’ll end up discussing with the Players Association.

“It has a direct impact on many of the player’s bonuses. There’s preset bonuses in their contracts for making the All-Star team. I think counter-balancing that is the issue of playing time.

“[NBA executive vice-president] Rod Thorn and I were having this discussion (Saturday). We said we should move to [Kentucky coach John] Calipari’s platoon system for All-Star to make sure that everyone gets [enough] playing time.”

The NBA has used 12-man rosters for the All-Star Game every year since 1982.

A look at the playing time for the least-used reserve in those 32 All-Star games (there was no game in 1999 because of the lockout) finds that the average for that least-used player is a shade more than eight minutes.

Damian Lillard didn’t get a lot of All-Star run last year and was bypassed in favor of Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins this time around. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /

Two players did not log double-digit minutes in the 2014 All-Star Game at Smoothie King Arena in New Orleans—Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard played nine minutes and Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki logged eight.

The shortest stint for an All-Star reserve since 1982 was the three minutes of work Karl Malone put in during the 2000 All-Star Game at what was then called Oakland Arena. Malone’s playing time was limited, according to the Chicago Tribune, because he didn’t arrive in Oakland, Calif., until Sunday and did not get a chance to go through practice.

The NBA went through several different roster-size choices before setting on 12—rosters for the first 10 All-Star games (the game began in 1951) consisted of 10 players, was bumped to 11 for the 1961 and 1962 games and increased to 12 in 1963.

But in 1964, the rosters shrank back to 10 players and remained there until the expansion era went into full effect, with rosters going back to 12 players in 1968 and to a whopping 14 players for three years (1971-73).

They settled on 12 from 1974-77 and went back to 11 in 1978 before finally settling on 12 players in for the 1982 event.

Silver didn’t like having to choose between two worthy contenders for the Western Conference squad this year to replace injured Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers.

He settled on Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins in what he called a “essentially a tie” with Lillard.

“I didn’t like having to make that choice,” Silver said. “I wish I had another slot for Damian because I think he’s deserving of being an All-Star as well.”

The NBA All-Star Game, to the chagrin of many, is like the ultimate playground game—the best players in the game doing their thing without deference to an offensive system. It is free-flowing basketball at its best and if you like that sort of thing, it’s a once-a-year treat.

But in order to really get the game flowing, players need to be able to get a decent amount of run. Bigger rosters means fewer minutes for everyone involved and that might not be the best thing in terms of the flow of the game.

There are also the philosophical concerns about a commissioner who seems to think the solution to being asked to make a tough decision is to eliminate that decision via having more All-Star slots available.

But there will still be injured players and that means there will still be a need for the commissioner to determine injury replacements.

If the rosters are expanded to 15 players and Silver has a tough choice between players 16 and 17, would that again mean the rosters need to be larger?

If we’ve learned anything about the game through the years, it should be that bigger does not always equal better.

Look at the problems wrought by a 30-team league—talent spread paper-thin, impact players gone before the middle of the draft, teams having to make the choice between being marginally competitive and remaining stuck in the purgatory between contention and humiliation or going all-in on blowing up rosters in an effort to get closer to the top of the draft board, where the franchise changing talent is believed to be.

This isn’t sixth-grade basketball at the YMCA, where everyone gets to play. It’s the NBA All-Star Game, reserved for the five players per conference the fans want to see and the next seven from East and West believed by the coaches to be the best of the best.

Let’s not cheapen that in an era where we seem to want to cheapen everything else.

Historical All-Star Game data compiled via basketball-reference.com.

Next: 50 Greatest NBA Players Of The 1970s

NBA: All-Star Game Rosters Just Fine At 12

By Phil Watson | Feb 2, 2015

More from Hoops Habit