Victor Wembanyama set the tone.
But his teammates came up empty.
The French superstar helped deliver what was a more competitive-than-expected slate of All-Star games.
This year’s format featured three teams of eight players — two composed of American players and one mainly of foreign-born players competing in a round-robin.
The idea was to create a reason for the players to care after years of lax effort.
In that regard, it delivered.
“It’s a game we love,” Wembanyama said. “It’s a game [I] personally cherish. Being competitive is the least I can do.”
Wembanyama’s Team World, though, lost to both the USA teams.
He missed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer that could have helped his team beat the USA Stripes and advance to the final.
“I ain’t gonna lie,” Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards said after the first game. “Wemby set the tone. He came out playing hard, so it’s hard not to match that, so s–t, that’s what happened.”
“Y’all been asking for it,” Knicks star Karl-Anthony Towns said. “Fans been asking for it, the media’s been asking for it. I feel that after today, y’all can see that the competition is there. We all brought it today in the sense of effort. I hope the fans and all y’all appreciated it.”
Wembanyama scored 33 points between Team World’s two games.
“Wemby said what he said,” Vince Carter, one of NBC’s color analysts, said. “He said, ‘I’m coming out here to play hard.’ The first three buckets, he set the tone. Off the rip, he wanted the ball, he wanted the ball in the post. … He’s coming out to play.”
Young blood ruled over the old souls, as the USA Stripes — composed of mostly longer-tenured veterans — blew out the USA Stars, composed of mostly younger All-Stars, in the final.
Edwards scored eight points and added four rebounds and two assists in the final.
He was named All-Star MVP.
“I gotta say: It’s back,” Tracy McGrady, one of NBC’s analysts, said of the effort level. “What we wanted from these guys, they gave us that back and more.”