NBA Shooting Stars 2015: Participant List, Historical Records and More

One of the best parts of NBA All-Star Weekend is Saturday's round of skills challenges. One of the newest events, though at this point it's 12 years old, is the Shooting Stars competition. It's a simple concept, taking one current NBA superstar, one retired NBA star and a current WNBA star, and it makes for a thrilling show. 

It's also an ingenious event for the NBA to put on because it works on multiple levels. In addition to giving fans a closer look at what makes the stars of today such great shooters, it honors the history of the league by including a legend and brings an audience to the WNBA that may not always be watching in the summer. 

This year's competition has the makings of a marquee event, at least based on the recently released rosters for the February 14 shooting showcase in Madison Square Garden. 

Now that we know the four teams taking the court to show off their shooting touch, it's time to dive into which group looks the best and take a look back at the history of this event. 

Roster

NBA.com broke down the teams for this year's contest:

"

In the Degree Shooting Stars competition, the two-time defending championship team of Chris Bosh, Dominique Wilkins and Swin Cash will reunite. Although this is a shooting competition, Team Davis, made up of Anthony Davis, Scottie Pippen and Elena Delle Donne, will have unbelievable length. Other participants include Golden State’s Stephen Curry and his father, retired guard Dell.

"

However, as the NBA announced on Thursday, Paul Millsap will replace Davis, per Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

NBA Shooting Stars 2015 Info

Where: Madison Square Garden in New York

When: February 14 at 8:30 p.m. ET (Shooting Stars is first event)

Watch: TNT

Live Stream: NBA.com/TNTOvertime

Rules

The Shooting Stars event is a time-based competition where the players from each team shoot from six locations. They start close to the basket and gradually move farther away from the hoop. 

There are also specific rules for each shot. For example, the first shot is a 10-foot bank shot from the right angle. If you don't score off the backboard, the shot doesn't count, and you must keep trying until it is correct.

Here's how the entire shooting chart looks:

Shot	Shot Description
No. 1	10-foot bank shot, right elbow
No. 2	15-foot bank shot, left elbow
No. 3	25-foot three-pointer, straight on
No. 4	18-foot shot, baseline
No. 5	22-foot three-pointer, left angle
No. 6	Half-court shot

Event History

With 11 years of past history to examine, here is a list of winners and some analysis of the top performances from this event:

Year	Team	Time (Seconds)
2014	Team Bosh: Chris Bosh (Miami Heat), Swin Cash (Chicago Sky), Dominique Wilkins (Atlanta Hawks)	31.4
2013	Team Bosh: Chris Bosh (Miami Heat), Swin Cash (Chicago Sky), Dominique Wilkins (Atlanta Hawks)	89.0
2012	New York: Landry Fields, Cappie Pondexter, Allan Houston	37.3
2011	Atlanta: Al Horford, Coco Miller, Steve Smith	70.0
2010	Texas: Dirk Nowitzki, Becky Hammon, Kenny Smith	34.3
2009	Detroit: Arron Afflalo, Katie Smith, Bill Laimbeer	58.4
2008	San Antonio: Tim Duncan, Becky Hammon, David Robertson	35.8
2007	Detroit: Chauncey Billups, Swin Cash, Bill Laimbeer	50.5
2006	San Antonio: Tony Parker, Kendra Wecker, Steve Kerr	25.1
2005	Phoenix: Shawn Marion, Diana Taurasi, Dan Majerle	28.0
2004	Los Angeles: Derek Fisher, Lisa Leslie, Magic Johnson	43.9

It's amazing to think of all the great shooters in basketball today, yet no one has been able to break 30 seconds since the San Antonio team featuring Steve Kerr, Tony Parker and Kendra Wecker set the record of 25.1 in 2006. 

Of course, if anyone is going to set a record in a shooting event, Kerr would be a safe bet. He was J.J. Redick before anyone knew who J.J. Redick was. Here's how that shooting exhibition looked:

That team only needed two extra shots to set the record, with Parker and Kerr each missing once. Parker made up for his error by hitting the first half-court shot attempt by the San Antonio team. That's also a fascinating example of a great player getting lucky, as he's just a 32 percent shooter from three-point range in his career. 

Give Wecker credit, though, as she got the team started out strong with an easy make on the 10-foot bank attempt and kept it going on her second attempt from 18 feet away. 

As for the team that previously held the record before San Antonio in 2006, just rewind the clocks one year to find it. Phoenix had one of the most potent offenses in the NBA in the mid-2000s, so it was only fitting a team of players representing the city would put on an offensive show. 

The interesting thing is that particular Phoenix team didn't have Steve Nash. Shawn Marion was the Suns representative, who was a solid inside scorer in his heyday but shot just 33.2 percent from three-point range in his career. 

What more appropriate way to conclude a look back at past Shooting Stars events than with the most recent one?

After the NBA changed the format in 2013 to allow NBA players to pick their team instead of just players representing a single city, Chris Bosh has owned this competition. His team, comprised of him, Cash and Wilkins, is the only one to win back-to-back titles. 

The 2013 win wasn't pretty, as Team Bosh won in the championship round with a time of 89 seconds. They couldn't hit a half-court shot for 43 seconds before Wilkins finally put one in. 

Noah Graham/Getty Images

Last year's victory was much cleaner with a time of 31.4 seconds. Bosh joked after the event about how going back-to-back with this Big Three compared to winning consecutive NBA titles, via Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com. "Good question," Bosh said, playing along. "Today's back-to-back was extremely difficult. They were both hard. It's tough dealing with expectations, but that's what champions do. We just find a way."

As cliched as the response was, Bosh has built a winning formula in this event. He may want to retire before the magic runs out, although the mark of a true champion is coming back to keep defending the title. A three-peat may force his team to hang up the sneakers, as it would be on par with UCLA winning seven straight national titles from 1967 to 1973.