The reality of it is that it's a game that has no real stakes in the minds of the players and the fans. Back in the 80s or 90s or even the 2000s, the players didn't know each other that well. Social media wasn't a thing. They didn't hang out and train together in the offseason. There was much less player mobility. So there was more inherent competitiveness between them, and I think the ASG was kind of seen as the pinnacle of that. All Star selection was a way to build your brand and be considered one of the best. Now people have many ways to build their brands, and they all know each other and so it's become kind of like a glorified pickup game. The exception is European players because they tend to take representative selection more seriously as it's more a thing outside the US where playing for your club and winning a championship is THE most important thing. Think of how many of us didn't want our Celtics to play in Olympics, World Cups, FIBA tournaments, etc, because you don't want them getting injured and messing up the Cs chance at a championship.
Plus, they didn't get paid as much overall as players do now. In the 80s the average player salary was what, $400k? And the highest was around $4m, I think that was Ewing. in the 90s the average was around $1m, Jordan had an annual of around $30m. In the 2000s the max was still around that but the average was around $4m, then a decade later it was around $5-8m and the max was around $35m, then this decade the average is around $12m and the max is $60m+. When they're getting paid that much the investment teams have made in them is huge and they know that, the last thing they want is to get injured trying hard in a "meaningless" game when the team and the fans all want them to be healthy for the playoffs. Plus if they get injured in a meaningless game, that could mess up their next contract.
In fact, I kind of see that "championship or bust" mindset permeating into the regular season now as well. Teams load manage players, sit them, rest them, who cares if they lose games as a result, because the only thing that matters is the playoffs and the championship.
So the only way to really, really make it competitive, not just fun competitive because they actually tried a bit for a change, is to make them have skin in the game. Make it meaningful. Make it matter in the overall pursuit of a championship. They won't do that though. Because it would suck if teams that weren't involved, had no players playing, then suffered a disadvantage because of a result in it.
So I guess we should be happy with games like we had last night, because they're at least better than what's happened in recent years, but they will never be able to recapture the magic of those 80s and 90s clashes. There's too much at stake for everyone now to risk things in a "meaningless exhibition game".
