2012 NBA All-Star Game: 5 Ways to Fix Failing Exhibition Game

The annual NBA All-Star Game needs some help. Here are five ways to improve it around the league.

Unlike the exhibition games of the '80s and '90s that were exciting to watch and showcased the skills of the NBA's best players, the current All-Star Game has turned into a popularity contest of who can throw down the biggest alley-oop.

In an effort to improve the game, Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves recently stated the NBA All-Star Game should be like Major League Baseball and count for something in the postseason.

While Love's idea may be good to increase the intensity of the All-Star Game, it would not be good when it came to the NBA Finals.

To help Love out, here are five suggestions to make the game more fun, exciting and watchable for basketball fans worldwide. 

Set Roster Limits

In 2011, the 12-man Eastern Conference All-Star roster was dominated by two teams and represented only six of the 15 Eastern teams. 

Although each of the players was deserving of an All-Star selection, it is not right for a seven of the 12 spots to be taken by members of only two teams. 

On the roster that year were four Boston Celtics players, three guys from the Miami Heat, two from the Atlanta Hawks and one each from the New York Knicks and Orlando Magic.

To make the All-Star Game a league-wide exhibition, more teams in the league need to be represented. 

This season's roster is a little more balanced, but four of the five Western Conference starters come from two teams that play in the same city.

With only 12 players on a team, rosters should be limited to a maximum of two players from each NBA team so that more teams can be represented in the game.   

Expand Fan Voting

Instead of fans only selecting the starting five players, expand the voting to the next five guys off the bench as well. 

Not only would this increase the interest in the fan voting process, it would allow fans of the players who are not the usual starters to have a say in who gets into the game. 

The ballot could easily be broken down into sections to ensure that players are selected at each position to fill the bench. 

More Equal Playing Time

There is nothing more frustrating for a fan to follow a favorite player into the All-Star Game and see them wave a towel from the bench and play only a handful of minutes.

In last year's game, there were players who played more than 30 minutes of the game and several who played less than 12. 

It must be equally as frustrating to a player to give up rest time away from the game for a weekend to go to the All-Star Game to be more of a cheerleader than a player. 

Hopefully head coaches Tom Thibodeau and Scott Brooks will be mindful of this and share the minutes more equally so that all players get more even time on the court.  

Expand the Rosters

Th NBA All-Star Game roster should be expanded from 12 to 15 players so that more deserving NBA players can be recognized and more teams can be represented.

If additional teams are represented, more fans in more markets will be interested in watching the game so that they can see their team's star play.

While this year's roster is more representative of the different teams in the league than it has been in the past, only 18 of the league's 30 teams have an All-Star player this year. 

That leaves thousands of fans in 12 NBA markets who won't be as excited about the game because they do not see a player from their own team.

Of those 12 teams, most have at least one player who is deserving of being named an All-Star.

Adding players to the roster and ensuring that a greater majority of teams are represented will help expand the popularity of the game to more of the country.

It will also decrease the amount of players who get snubbed in the All-Star process. 

Create a Four-Team Tournament

Instead of playing just one exhibition game between 24 players, why not expand it to a two-day tournament that would incorporate four full rosters of All-Stars. 

Forming the team would be simple. 

Fans would vote for the top 24 players in each conference, with at least one player from each team represented. Positions of players would be taken into consideration so that rosters will end up balanced.

Four coaches would then select players in a draft-like format to fill their 12-man rosters and form two teams made up of players from the Eastern Conference and two teams made up of players from the Western Conference.

The teams would still hold the traditional East vs. West format and would then play a tournament similar to the NCAA Final Four, with one Eastern and one Western team matching up in both first-round games.

If two of the games were played Friday night, the league could hold the Saturday night festivities as usual.

The final game between Friday's winners would then be played on Sunday to determine the best of the four All-Star teams.

Not only would it add excitement and speculation for the fans as to which of the four teams is better, the competitive nature of players will kick in and the games will be taken more seriously. 

Imagine the bragging rights players would have to say that they were the best of four teams of All-Stars.