Sports
Did the NBA Fix the All-Star Game? Mixed Reviews After New Format Debut
The knobs were turned, the recipe tweaked, and the NBA sat back and watched the latest version of its embattled showcase event unfold in the Los Angeles area this weekend.
The verdict? It was entertaining until it wasn’t as the NBA learned there actually can be too much of a good thing when it comes to the All-Star Game.
What went right was that one team of young stars, one team of veteran heroes and another of international standouts seemed to return an improved sense of pride to the event.
And 12-minute games, where energy and effort play is needed to move forward, added the sense of urgency that had been lacking in All-Star Games from the past.
But by essentially playing the equivalent high-stakes games that mirrored full-game fourth quarters, there were heavy legs and wayward shots by the time the title-game matchup rolled around.
It was hardly a surprise that the younger USA Stars were the last team standing. Their lopsided 47-21 victory over the veteran USA Stripes failed to deliver the proper crescendo that had been building from the beginning.
With victory and the MVP in hand, though, Anthony Edwards of USA Stars gave the event’s new format his stamp of approval.
“Yeah, I think they ain’t really going to take in what I’m saying, but I like this format,” the Minnesota Timberwolves’ star said. “I think it makes us compete because it’s only 12 minutes, and the three different teams separate the guys. I think it was really good.”
There are still those who want to put the old pieces back together.
“I mean, East-West is definitely a tradition,” said LeBron James of USA Stripes, before playing in his record 22nd All-Star Game. “It’s been really good. Obviously, I like the East and West format. They’re trying something. We’ll see what happens.”
Kawhi Leonard of Team Stripes leaned into the urgency and scored 31 points in 12 minutes to end Team World’s title hopes. He had fans in his home arena chanting “MVP” before running out of gas in the final when he scored one point.
“I thought it was good, but I still think going back to East-West will be great,” Leonard said. “I think guys will compete still.”
As promising as Sunday’s format was, there was plenty of confusion on the court after USA Stripes earned a 42-40 victory over USA Stars on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from De’Aaron Fox.
“I hit a 3 to get to 40, and we thought the game was over,” Edwards said. “Fox came back and hit a 3, and they won. I kind of felt like we got wigged out, but it’s all good.”
Leonard said Saturday that he wasn’t sure how the round-robin format was going to work. He still had questions Sunday.
“Even as the game’s going on, trying to figure out the records for being 2-1 and how you play that out as well,” Leonard said. “Is it like by points? How many? Point spread or what?”
Kevin Durant of Team Stripes failed to score in the title game and had 12 points on the day but went on the record multiple times begging to stop the criticism madness.
“I just feel like fans and media need something to complain about, and the All-Star Game don’t make them feel like they felt when they were kids,” Durant said this past weekend. “They need something to complain about. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, to be honest.”
The NBA showed it is listening with its newest format. The league even added a Shooting Stars competition to All-Star Saturday. The addition of an international team in the All-Star Game gave the day an Olympics/Ryder Cup flavor.
There will still be plenty of detractors. Having the veteran USA Stripes play three consecutive high-energy 12-minute games didn’t seem like a good idea. And it wasn’t.
“The format, yeah, I liked it,” Team World’s Victor Wembanyama said. “I liked it. I wouldn’t be against this format in the future, and I wouldn’t be against the regular East versus West either.”
Now comes the wait to see what the NBA does next year as the Suns’ Devin Booker gets set to welcome the All-Star circus Phoenix. Booker validated Sunday’s festivities.
“I think every team honestly wanted to win,” Booker said.
Of course that is easy to say when you did actually win.
“I know the world guys wanted to win,” Booker said. “I know Victor wanted to win bad. You could see it. And I know our team did. Shout-out Kawhi. We were watching that game in the back. That’s probably one of the most special quarters of basketball we’ve witnessed.”
Sports
Are the Pittsburgh Pirates Finally Ready to Contend in 2026?
The Pittsburgh Pirates have been one of the worst teams in baseball over the last decade. They have the 5th-lowest winning percentage in baseball and have more 100-loss seasons (two) than winning seasons (one) over that period.
Bob Nutting is one of the worst owners in sports, and because of that, the Pirates are among the lowest spenders in the league. To go along with a cheap owner, they’ve been mostly incompetent from an organizational point of view, squandering the actual talent they’ve had come through PNC Park.
But it sort of feels like the Pirates are ready to be a real baseball team.
If you want to talk about the Pirates, it starts with Paul Skenes. He leads a rotation that should be one of the better position groups in the National League. Bubba Chandler should be right behind Skenes in the rotation, and many scouts feel he has number one pitcher upside to him. He had some struggles in his first few appearances at the major league level, but in his final three starts last season, he threw 16.2 innings, allowing only two runs.
Braxton Ashcraft and Mitch Keller will also be featured in a Pirates rotation that should keep the team competitive on the mound. In the bullpen, the Pirates added Gregory Soto to a group of relief pitchers needing some depth.
They’ll also lean on Dennis Santana, who had one of the best chase rates in baseball last season, Carmen Mlodzinski, who’s been quite consistent the last few years, and a lot of other arms that come with many questions. The bullpen never had much help on the offensive side of things the last few years, but the Pirates actually attempted to add some quality bats to their lineup.
O’Neil Cruz and Bryan Reynolds had career-worst seasons in the outfield last year for Pittsburgh, but I’m betting on them to bounce back with more protection around them.
The Pirates got aggressive this offseason, bringing in Brandon Lowe, Marcell Ozuna, Jhostynxon Garcia, and Ryan O’Hearn.
Lowe and O’Hearn are coming off solid All-Star seasons and should provide immediate help to the Pirates’ lineup. Ozuna is coming off a bit of a down season, but he had hit 79 homers over the prior two seasons. I like them taking a risk on Ozuna on a relatively cheap one-year deal, just to see if he can bounce back.
Lastly, Garcia had been excelling in the Boston farm system, but it was unlikely he was ever going to break through a crowded Red Sox outfield. Pittsburgh had to flip Johan Oviedo, but I still think this was a pretty savvy move for the Pirates.
The lineup will also feature infielder Spencer Horwitz, who, after struggling with injuries at the beginning of the season, finished the year strong and generated a team-leading 118 OPS+ last year for the Pirates.
However, the biggest question facing the Pirates is what they will do with Konnor Griffin. He’s seen as the best prospect in the sport, and if they’re actually serious about contending this year, he will start the season as the team’s shortstop.
Griffin is a 6’4” 19-year-old who’s built like a 10-year veteran. He murdered the ball at all three levels of minor league baseball he played in last season; he’s a plus defender and a plus athlete. He’s the no-doubt hitting prospect that the Pirates have been needing for so long now. Adding him to a lineup that could feature 5-6 above-average hitters, this team could be serious right now.
The Pirates are currently +800 to win the NL Central and +425 to make the playoffs. It might be time to trust the Pirates, because they’re going to be contenders in 2026.
Sports
Report: Seahawks unlikely to apply franchise tag to Kenneth Walker III
Feb 8, 2026; Santa Clara, CA, USA; Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (9) carries the ball against the New England Patriots during the fourth quarter in Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images The Seattle Seahawks unlikely are to apply the franchise tag to Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker III, according to a report by ESPN.
Walker, who ran for 135 yards in Seattle’s 29-13 Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots, is not being prioritized as a retention piece, per ESPN. The Seahawks reportedly are prioritizing other pending free agents and likely will work on an extension for star receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Walker, 25, would be given a one-year, $14.1 million contract if the franchise tag was applied to him. The former second-round pick is at the end of his four-year rookie contract which saw the Seahawks pay him a total of $8.4 million.
After rushing for 1,027 yards and five touchdowns in the regular season, Walker amassed 313 yards and four scores over the Seahawks’ three playoff games. He took over the majority of the reps in the wake of Zach Charbonnet’s season-ending knee injury sustained in Seattle’s divisional-round win over San Francisco.
Over four seasons with the Seahawks, Walker has rushed for 3,555 yards and 29 touchdowns while catching 133 passes for 1,005 yards and two more scores in 58 regular-season games (54 starts).
–Field Level Media
Sports
Super-vet and rookie combine for US in search of bobsleigh gold
Feb 16, 2026; Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy; Elana Meyers Taylor of the United States celebrates after winning the women’s bobsleigh monobob competition during the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at Cortina Sliding Centre. Mandatory Credit: Michael Madrid-Imagn Images CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Medal-laden Elana Meyers Taylor is in her fifth Olympics while Jadin O’Brien had barely seen, let alone touched, a bobsleigh until late last year, but this week that unlikely U.S. pairing will be targeting gold in the Two-Woman event in Cortina.
Meyers Taylor, 41, arrived with two silver and two bronze medals from the Two-Woman event, starting in 2010.
She got another silver with the first running of Monobob four years ago and then, on Monday, finally topped the podium with a dramatic Monobob gold.
There is nothing she does not know about the sport.
The same cannot be said for O’Brien, who was competing at the USA Track & Field championships as a heptathlete last August with no thought of getting into a bobsleigh.
That was until Meyers Taylor, always on the lookout for the sort of powerful sprinters necessary for success, contacted her.
“It has been a whirlwind,” O’Brien, 23, told journalists in Cortina ahead of her event that begins on Friday.
“I finished my last track meet August 2nd and started training for bobsled August 4th. Ten days after that, I was in Lake Placid doing the rookie camp. Two weeks after, I made the World Cup team and now we are in Europe.
“I could never have predicted my life would turn out this way, but I’m incredibly grateful, and I’ve loved every second of it.”
Not quite every second.
SPECTACULAR CRASH
A month ago, O’Brien and Meyers Taylor were involved in a spectacular crash in St. Moritz, Switzerland that the veteran pilot described as one of the most violent she had ever seen.
“It was not easy getting back on the line to race in St. Moritz after that,” O’Brien said. “I was in a lot of pain, I couldn’t really move and we were both very, very beat up.
“But in a weird way I think it brought us together as a pair. I decided to put my body on the line for ‘E’ because I felt that I had the best chance of getting her in a top 10 finish. We did place in the top 10 and I think that was a testament to who we are as athletes and what we’re capable of doing together.
“Honestly, the sky is the limit for both of us.”
At the start of the Games, Meyers Taylor sat alongside O’Brien looking more like a proud parent than a teammate and said that though she was going all out for the gold that had proved just out of reach at four Olympics, her vast experience has given her something of a Zen approach.
“It would mean everything and it would mean nothing all at the same time,” the mother of two deaf sons said of the prospect of topping the podium.
“I wanted to approach this sport with joy and integrity. I am going to give it everything I’ve got and see what happens, but, at the end of the day, a gold medal is not going to change who I am.”
Unchanged or not, she now has that gold, saying the fact she wanted, rather than needed it helped her achieve it and now she will be pouring all her experience and energy into helping O’Brien get the same feeling.
One of the women trying to spoil that dream is teammate Kaillie Humphries, twice a gold medalist in the event for Canada but now representing the U.S. at the age of 40.
Germany remains the favorite, in the form of Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi, who were crowned World Cup champions last month after winning five of the seven races.
Nolte had looked nailed on for gold after three runs in the Monobob final but wobbled on her last run to drop to silver and will be desperate to make amends.
–Reuters, special to Field Level Media
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