The new-look NBA All-Star Game didn’t exactly win everyone over. Some didn’t love the constant stoppages. Others questioned the effort, or the lack of it. However you slice it, the format drew its share of criticism. And Houston Rockets forward Kevin Durant had a familiar name in mind when it came time to hand out blame.

“I’m blaming Steph [Curry], I’m blaming Steph. It’s Steph’s fault. Because he come out there and shoot from half-court, bro. He shoot from half-court bro…I’m blaming him for the All-Star Game, ’cause he come out there and shoot from half,” he said, appearing on teammate Fred VanVleet’s Unguarded podcast.

The league, for its part, is already looking ahead. The 2026 All-Star Game will roll out a USA vs. World round-robin setup, featuring three teams, two American squads and one international group, each with eight players. The games will be 12 minutes, with the top two advancing to a final. We’ll see how that plays.

Lately, the All-Star Game has settled into a rhythm that’s hard to mistake—and harder to take seriously. Minimal resistance. Heat-check jumpers. Extended stretches that resemble a high-level open run more than an actual NBA contest. The league, chasing television moments and global engagement, has quietly accepted that trade-off.

Stephen Curry isn’t solely responsible for how the weekend looks now, but Kevin Durant’s point lands cleanly. Curry approaches All-Star Weekend like an exhibition, not a competition. Last year, he launched from half court—because he could.

Floor-stretching has always been his calling card, but even the greatest shooter the game has ever produced doesn’t operate from the logo when the games matter.

And no matter how many tweaks the league makes, Durant doesn’t believe the solution lies in the rulebook. If the All-Star Game is going to change, it starts with the veterans taking it seriously and setting the tone.

Durant has pushed back on the idea that format fixes alone can solve the problem, suggesting that the behavior of the league’s most influential players matters more than any reset.

He may have aimed his All-Star criticism at Curry. But the blame game didn’t end there.

Kevin Durant makes a strong statement about the Warriors

Kevin Durant sat down with teammate Fred VanVleet for a wide-ranging, two-hour conversation on Unguarded, touching on just about everything you’d expect. The All-Star Game came up. So did the moment that changed the arc of his career: the Achilles injury he suffered back in 2019.

Durant said he was never told by the Warriors’ medical staff that the calf strain he was dealing with during the 2019 Finals carried a real risk of turning into an Achilles tear. That’s exactly what happened in Game 5.

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“If I knew that information I would’ve made a different decision. If they told me, ‘Ah, you can tear your Achilles, I probably wouldn’t have went out there,” the forward said.

That night ended more than just a game. In many ways, it closed Durant’s chapter with Golden State, a run that delivered two championships and three straight trips to the Finals.

Durant had strained his calf earlier in the postseason and missed the entire Western Conference Finals, a series the Warriors swept against Portland. He then sat out the first four games of the Finals before returning for Game 5, hoping to give his team a lift.

Durant was finished after Game 5. Golden State went on to lose the series to Toronto in six, falling short of a third straight title.

This highlights ongoing tensions in the NBA between players and team medical staffs over injury transparency and decision-making. A well-documented parallel occurred in 2017–18 with Kawhi Leonard and the San Antonio Spurs.

Leonard dealt with persistent right quadriceps tendinopathy, leading to major disagreements between his personal medical advisors and the Spurs’ staff on diagnosis, treatment, and return-to-play timeline. Including him seeking outside opinions in New York and his own doctors guiding rehab.

The friction—centered on trust in the team’s injury management—created a rift that contributed to Leonard playing only nine games that season and ultimately being traded to Toronto.