I've always said, should be North V South. Not Aus V World like before.

Game should also be packaged with a Legends game & 3p shootout. And played in non NBL cities so the league can expand it's fan base.

Geelong, Hobart, Newcastle, Canberra, Albury, Brisbane, Mackay, Warnabool etc.

can anyone remember the "Future Forces" game held prior to the NBL All Star game?
Ive got a VHS somewhere of Sam Mackinnon vs Brett rainbow vs Calvin Talbert dunk comp being commentated by a clearly wasted Steve Carfino.

Should get Gaze and Maher to Coach, let the fans pick the teams via FB and SMS numbers. Don't call the Teams North vs South!! Call them Team Gaze and Team Maher!
Do it properly, have a 3 point shootout, skills challenge, dunk comp, wet T-shirt contest, the works!

More comps they have, the more players they have to fly in and put up in accommodation. I think that might hamper them.

I'd also like to see some sort of Future Forces game - I think you could get more highlights out of a Mitch Creek than most NBL All-Stars.

Whatever encourages attacking play is best. Penalties for excessive three-point shooting. Have a sponsor put up a dunk bounty.

I never liked the Imports Vs Aus format as Kiwi's playing in the league had to play as Imports (mostly cos i'm from NZ).
North Vs South would be great and would mix Australians with Imports and kiwi's giving a real mix and adding to the spectacle.

How would you cut off the North/South line?

Also, and I'm just chewing the fat here, but what about an age cut-off all star game? Young guns Vs Veterans?

Cut the groups off at a certain age and have them face ach other?

I think that would be more competitive with the young guys trying to prove they're worth their salt and the veterans trying to show the young fellas how it's done.

I would much prefer to see a Team Gaze v Team Maher set up than a North v South, Aussies v Imports.

Fans vote for the 20 players they want to see in the All Star game and the 5 they want in the Skills Challenge.

Gaze & Maher have a 3 Point shootout at half time of the All Star hosts last home game before the weekend. The winner gets the first pick in the draft which also occurs in that halftime.

Also like anything that promotes dunks but doesn't eliminate defence. Maybe dunks are worth 4 points.

Personally I don't want anything that changes the rules of a normal basketball game... but each to their own.

North vs South is the only logically and viable long-term arrangement for an NBL All-Star game. Just about all other formats would mean that club team-mates play against each other which is not ideal.

The split line would be;

North: Cairns, Townsville, Gold Coast, Sydney, Perth

South: Wollongong, New Zealand, Melbourne, Adelaide

Or Sydney could be in South - it depends how technical you want to be about 'North and South'!

New Melbourne team obviously would also be South, and Brisbane North.

The Maher Vs Gaze with the fan votes counting to the player pool they select from. Pick like the Allstar spots so you have a pool of players for each position and each fan gets to suggest a team with all the players votes going towards the spots in the pool that Maher and Gaze pick from. Gaze and Maher could have to shoot for who picks first and then alternate picks.
Heaps of different options like Fans pick starting 5's and Gaze & Maher pick the benches or Fans pick everything and they just coach.
3point comp is a must, CJ, Crawford, Ng, Lisch, Foreman, Bose etc and I would like to see a dunk comp with the likes of Creek, Walker, Abercrombie

Maybe they should do what the NHL does and have a fantasy draft and make it a weekend event.

Friday night - Fantasy Draft
Saturday night - Legends Game, 3 Point shooutout, skills comp
Sunday night - All Star Game

NBL would never go for a Team Maher because Brett is only a hero to us here in Adelaide.It would be Team Heal or Team Vlahov or Team Mackinnon or something like that, which kills it for me right there. North v South

WARNING - This is a long/detailed post

I was actually talking about the potential for an NBL All-Star Weekend with a mate just the other day. We spent probably a good 2 or 3 hours discussing how it would work, plus emails to each other and this is what we came up with:


You could potentially emulate the NBA All-star weekend with some minor changes to fit the requirements/restrictions/abilities of the NBL as a whole.
We discussed the idea of having this as a Friday/Saturday/Sunday event, with the main game being held on the Sunday afternoon/evening.
In terms of events to be held over the course of a weekend you could potentially have a Legends/Celebrity game, Skills Challenge, 3PT Shootout, Shooting Stars Challenge, non-NBL All-Star game and then finally the main event: NBL All-Star Game.

Friday Night

Non-NBL All-Star Game: The idea we proposed for this was for regional basketball leagues (SEABL, QABL, CABL etc.) to nominate 2-3 non-NBL and import players to form two teams (this is where you could use your North vs. South format) and play in a standard All-Star Game. It gives some of the unknown talent in AUS a chance to show their skills to a crowd (and potentially a TV audience if OneHD was on board).

NBL All-Star Team Selection: Basically the same idea which has been suggested a few times already.
Fans vote for up to 4 players from each NBL team, with the 6-8 Imports and 12-14 Australian players with the most votes being placed in a 'Player Pool'.
Fans also vote for two NBL "Legends" to become the GM/Head Coach (Similar to this year’s Rising Stars Challenge in the NBA).
Could do some kind of gimmick event to determine who has the first pick; Half-court shootout, game of H-O-R-S-E or something similar. Winner gets the first pick, loser gets choice of Home/Away uniforms.

Once a GM/Coach has been selected, they then alternate picks and select their teams with a maximum or 3 (or 4) Imports per team.

Shooting Stars Challenge: Run the same as the NBA ‘Shooting Stars’ challenge with a current player, past player and WNBL player (from closest team) ie: Current 36er, Past 36er, Current Lightning.
Players must make the shot before moving on to the next in the sequence.

Bank shot from the right angle, Bank shot from the left angle (further out), Straight on 3PT shot, Right baseline shot (long), Left elbow 3PT shot, Half-court shot.

The event is timed, 2 (or 3) best times advance to the final round to declare a winner.

Legends/Celebrity Game: Get a mixture of past NBL legends, other sports stars, media personalities etc. and have a game with gimmicky rules (Consecutive 3’s activates Gamebreaker -> 3’s worth 4 points until a miss, Dunks worth bonus points etc.)

Saturday

Skills Challenge: Find a willing guard from each team to attempt a skill based obstacle course. Event is timed, top 3 times go through to a final round to declare a winner.

3 Point Shootout: Can select best 3PT shooter from each team or go with highest 3PT% for the season (top 6).
Standard 3PT Shootout rules with 5 racks of 5 balls (5th on each rack being a ‘Moneyball’).
Best 2 or 3 scores go through to the final round to declare a winner.

Dunk Contest: We discussed this but we weren’t too sure if the league had enough dunkers to make this a decent event. But we came up with rules anyway:
- Four participants
- Three rounds with 3 dunks per round.
- Lowest score is eliminated each round
- Top 2 Dunkers after 3 rounds must produce their best single dunk, best score wins (can be partly based on crowd response to find winner)

Sunday

NBL All-Star Game: Standard All-Star Game between the teams drafted on the Friday.
Players wear their team singlet for the game (Home - Colour, Away – White).

Could be a 48min game, 6 fouls per player or be current 40min FIBA rules.

Some issues we found with doing this though would obviously be scheduling, travel, production and advertising.

Ideally the event would be held sometime around mid-season, but issues come up with teams not willing to risk players to injury etc. We discussed the idea of having a Bye week mid-season for the event (ie: between rounds 12-13. Season games finish Sunday of Round 12, All-Star Weekend held the following weekend, games resume the following Friday – giving players/teams 5 days before and after the event to use for recovery/travel/training purposes).

^ what he said

I do like your ideas Clarky and I think that should be the NBL's end goal in a couple of years time.

However at the moment I am not sure that the NBL is strong enough to draw strong crowds both in attendance and on TV 3 days / nights in a row. I think to start it will just be over one day or night.