Explaining New NBA All-Star Game Format for 2026: Rules and Rosters

This year’s NBA All-Star Game is slated for Feb. 15 and will be held at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. It figures to be yet another exciting showcase of basketball’s brightest stars. However, in an effort to revive interest in the annual event, the league has opted to change the format yet again for the ASG. This time around it’s more creative than ever.

For most of its existence the All-Star Game featured a standard format: 12 players from each conference would be voted as All-Stars, and an East vs. West game would be played. In 2018 the NBA eliminated the conference teams, instead allowing the top vote-getter from the East and West to draft their own rosters to play in the All-Star Game. In 2020 the Elam Ending was introduced in an effort to inspire harder play from the All-Stars. The conference versus conference format was brought back in 2024 and the Elam Ending was eliminated.

That brings us to 2025, which laid the groundwork for ’26. Last year the singular All-Star Game was eliminated and replaced with a mini-tournament between four teams consisting of eight players. Three teams were made up of NBA All-Stars, who were voted into the game as always. The fourth team was made up of eight first- and second-year NBA players who competed in the Rising Stars challenge earlier in All-Star weekend.

This completely revamped version of the All-Star Game didn’t result in the spike of interest the NBA was hoping for. So the league opted to change it up again in 2026.

New NBA All-Star Game rules

This year the NBA has designed the All-Star Game around the concept of USA vs. World.

How it works: This year’s ASG competition will be made up of three teams. Two teams are made up of American-born players. The third team is made up of international players. The three squads will play a round-robin tournament; the first round features three 12-minute games. After those three games are played the two teams with the best records will play one last 12-minute “championship” game to determine this year’s All-Star winner. Who wins each game is simply based on who has the most points when the clock runs out; there’s no Elam Ending or target score.

As you probably realized already, there is a chance two teams finish tied after three round-robin games. In that case point differential would be used to decide which team advances to the championship game.

In short, fans are still getting 48 minutes of All-Star basketball. But instead of one complete game there will be four separate games that last about a quarter each. Every All-Star will get a moment in the sun.

New NBA All-Star rosters and how they were decided

The introduction of the USA vs. World format means roster construction was one of the biggest changes year-to-year for the All-Star Game. As stated above the concept is to trot out two rosters made up of at least eight American players and one roster made up of at least eight international players.

Despite how specific the makeup of the All-Star rosters needed to be to meeet those criteria, the NBA did not do away with the traditional All-Star voting. Instead the league let the process play out as normal. Fans made up 50% of the vote for the starters with players and media making up the other 50%. Then coaches voted on the reserves, leading to 24 total All-Star selection—12 from each conference.

After those results were announced, commissioner Adam Silver stepped in to ensure the USA vs. World format would work. The initial voting resulted in 15 American All-Stars and nine international All-Stars. Silver then named Kawhi Leonard as the 25th All-Star to balance out the American roster. Additonal players were named All-Stars as injury replacements for Steph Curry and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and the league ensured the USA vs. World format would still work with those replacements.

Once that was all said and done the American players were split up into two teams of eight. The World team wound up with nine All-Stars.

Team USA rosters for 2026

Here are all the All-Stars who will be playing on the USA sides for this year’s clash. An asterisk indicates they were an injury replacement.

PLAYER	TEAM	ALL-STAR SIDE
Scottie Barnes	Toronto Raptors	USA Stars
Devin Booker	Phoenix Suns	USA Stars
Cade Cunningham	Detroit Pistons	USA Stars
Jalen Duren	Detroit Pistons	USA Stars
Anthony Edwards	Minnesota Timberwolves	USA Stars
Chet Holmgren	Oklahoma City Thunder	USA Stars
Jalen Johnson	Atlanta Hawks	USA Stars
Tyrese Maxey	Philadelphia 76ers	USA Stars
Jaylen Brown	Boston Celtics	USA Stripes
Jalen Brunson	New York Knicks	USA Stripes
Brandon Ingram*	Toronto Raptors	USA Stripes
Kevin Durant	Houston Rockets	USA Stripes
LeBron James	Los Angeles Lakers	USA Stripes
Kawhi Leonard	Los Angeles Clippers	USA Stripes
Donovan Mitchell	Cleveland Cavaliers	USA Stripes
Norman Powell	Miami Heat	USA Stripes

*Ingram is replacing Steph Curry in the game.

Team World rosters for 2026 All-Star Game

Here are the All-Stars who will suit up against Team USA on Feb. 15, as well as the country they will represent. An asterisk indicates an injury replacement.

PLAYER	TEAM	COUNTRY
Giannis Antetokounmpo	Milwaukee Bucks	Greece
Deni Avdija	Portland Trail Blazers	Israel
Luka Dončić	Los Angeles Lakers	Slovenia
Nikola Jokić	Denver Nuggets	Serbia
Jamal Murray	Denver Nuggets	Canada
Alperen Şengün*	Houston Rockets	Turkey
Pascal Siakam	Indiana Pacers	Cameroon
Karl-Anthony Towns	New York Knicks	Dominican Republic
Victor Wembanyama	San Antonio Spurs	France

*Şengün is replacing Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

What time is the All-Star Game and how long will it take?

This year’s All-Star Game is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 15. The NBA loves to tip off after the scheduled “start time” so anticipate waiting a bit for the games to start if you’re seated at 5 p.m. on the dot.

Each game will have 12 minutes of clock but as we all know how long it takes to play out a quarter of basketball can change quite a bit depending on different factors. However, the NBA endeavored to guess and have announced the final game (the “championship” bout) will begin at about 7:10 p.m. ET.

All in, it will likely take about two and a half hours for the full All-Star festivites to play out on Sunday.

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