NBA All-Star 2025 festivities take over San Francisco Bay Area
The NBA All-Star Game and all the attendant weekend festivities came to San Francisco this year with the Golden State Warriors hosting the contest on their home court at Chase Center.
Sunday's game marked the first time the Warriors have hosted the event in a quarter century, having previously hosted the 2000 NBA All-Star at Oakland Arena and, before that, the 1967 All-Star Game at the Cow Palace in Daly City.
In addition to games and events on both sides of the Bay in San Francisco and Oakland, there were affiliated concerts featuring artists like electronic dance acts Zedd and Chainsmokers, hip-hop stars Flo Rida and 2 Chains, singer-songwriter Noah Kahan and blues guitar phenom Gary Clark Jr., the immersive fan experience NBA Crossover and NBA All-Star Alley on Powell St. with pop-up storefronts, live podcast recordings and a specially designed basketball court at Union Square.
Where did the weekend's events happen?
Most of the major NBA All-Star Game events including the game itself were held at Chase Center, but there were a few things that happened at the Warriors' former Oakland Arena home. The NBA All-Star concert series during the weekend was held at San Francisco's Pier 48, while the NBA Crossover fan experience was at Moscone Center from Friday through Sunday. While the inclement weather led to the cancellation of the outdoor NBA All-Star Tip-Off Party Thursday during the Warriors game against the Houston Rockets, there were related activities happening at Thrive City through the weekend at the entertainment zone's restaurants, bars and other businesses like the newly opened Splash sports bar.
Which All-Stars played?
The All-Stars are split into three teams of eight players this year, drafted by TNT analysts Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith. The rundown:
Chuck's Global Stars: Denver's Nikola Jokic, Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama, Indiana's Pascal Siakam, Houston's Alperen Sengun, New York's Karl-Anthony Towns, Cleveland's Donovan Mitchell, Atlanta's Trae Young. (Milwaukee's Giannis Antetokounmpo was supposed to play but cannot because of injury. Young replaced him in the game.)
Shaq's OGs: Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James, Golden State's Stephen Curry, Dallas' Kyrie Irving, Boston teammates Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, Phoenix's Kevin Durant, Milwaukee's Damian Lillard and the Los Angeles Clippers' James Harden. (Dallas' Anthony Davis was supposed to play but cannot because of injury. Irving replaced him for the game.)
Kenny's Young Stars: Minnesota's Anthony Edwards, New York's Jalen Brunson, Memphis' Jaren Jackson Jr., Oklahoma City's Jalen Williams, Cleveland teammates Darius Garland and Evan Mobley, Detroit's Cade Cunningham and Miami's Tyler Herro.
Who won the new NBA All-Star mini-tournament?
The NBA All-Star Game launched a radically different new tournament format this year that made its debut Sunday at the Chase Center in San Francisco. Instead of a standard basketball game with squads from the East and West conferences facing off, this year the All-Star Game featured a mini-tournament with four teams playing games to 40 points. That mean's there is no game clock -- just a shot clock -- and nobody fouls out.
The fourth team in the tournament was determined by the Rising Stars competition on Friday. San Antonio's Stephon Castle scored 12 points and won MVP honors, Keyonte George had a 3-pointer for the game-winning score and Team C beat Team G League — composed of players from the NBA's developmental league — 25-14 in the championship game of the first mini-tournament on Friday night. For All-Star Game purposes, the squad was renamed Candace's Rising Stars, in honor of Candace Parker.
In Sunday's first semifinal matchup, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 12 points, including the clinching basket, and Chuck's Global Stars advanced to the title game by beating Kenny's Young Stars 41-32, while Damian Lillard scored nine points, including the final 3-pointer to push Shaq's OGs over Candace's Rising Stars 42-35 in a competitive game that saw nine lead changes and five ties.
Shaq's OGs would go on to win the first All-Star mini-tournament in NBA history on Sunday night, getting 15 points from Jayson Tatum and 12 from Stephen Curry to beat Chuck's Global Stars 41-25 in the final after Barkley's team was doomed by a slow start, shooting 0 for 10 from the field, 0 for 6 from 3-point range and quickly falling into a 11-0 hole. Curry was awarded the All-Star MVP trophy to cap a celebratory weekend for the Warriors star who was front and center throughout the festivities.
There was a prize pool of $1.8 million for the All-Star tournament. Each player on the All-Star champion team got $125,000, each player on the runner-up team received $50,000 and the players on the teams eliminated in the semifinals each got $25,000.
Who performed at All-Star weekend?
In addition to the scheduled NBA All-Star concerts at Pier 48 that required separate paid admission, a number of artists performed at the main events throughout the weekend. DJ Cassidy, Too $hort, Saweetie, En Vogue and Raphael Saadiq were among the featured performers on All-Star Sunday, with comedian Kevin Hart serving at the emcee during the tournament. For All-Star Saturday night, H.E.R. and LiAngelo Ball — the brother of NBA guards Lonzo Ball and LaMelo Ball — was among the performers. Bay Area rapper LaRussell took the stage to perform an original song to introduce the Rising Stars on Friday night.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
