LeBron James will play in the NBA All Star for the 21st time in its most innovative edition

The tournament of the stars will consist this time of two semi-finals and a final with matches to 40 points and an option for the rookies

The NBA is still mulling over its All-Star Game, trying to increase its appeal to audiences and still not finding the formula for a competitive spectacle. Players don’t want to risk injury or spend too much energy on defense. After returning to the origins last year with an East vs. West game, for this season, the NBA has decided to create a mini-tournament with semifinals and a 40-point final. With the new scheme, the selection of five starters from each Conference by popular vote loses some of its meaning, but at this point the tradition remains. And, in what is also another tradition, one of those starters will be LeBron James . For the long-serving Lakers player, the February 16th will be his twenty-first participation in the All-Star Game.

Two other veterans from the NBA’s old guard join him in the West’s starting five. The Suns’ Kevin Durant , who will make his 15th All-Star game with this one, and the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry, who is selected for his 11th appearance. Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic will be playing for the seventh time, while Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder will make his third All-Star game.

For the Eastern Conference, the five starters will include two players from the New York Knicks, Karl-Anthony Towns and Jalen Brunson; one from the Cleveland Cavaliers, Donovan Mitchell; another from the Boston Celtics, Jayson Tatum; and one from the Milwaukee Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The five players chosen as starters in each conference have been selected by fans (50% of votes), NBA players (25%) and a media panel (25%).

They will be joined by 14 other players, seven per conference, chosen by the coaches as theoretical backups. However, since the 24 selected will form three teams of eight players, there will actually be 15 starters.

That’s because, for the first time, the All-Star Game will consist of a mini-tournament with four teams and three games. Two teams will face each other in one semifinal, and the other two teams will face each other in the other semifinal. The winning teams will go on to face each other in the championship. In each game, the winner will be the first team to reach or exceed 40 points.

Each team will feature eight players and will be named by a TNT NBA commentator: Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny Smith. The three analysts will make their respective selections for Team Chuck, Team Shaq and Team Kenny live on TNT on Thursday, Feb. 6 just prior to the network’s doubleheader broadcast of NBA games that night.

The fourth team will be the winner of the NBA All-Star Game between the best first- and second-year players in the NBA and the NBA G League standouts, which will be played on Friday, February 14 during All-Star weekend.

The four teams will compete for a prize pool of $1.8 million: each player on the championship-winning team will receive $125,000, each player on the second-place team will receive $50,000, and each player on the third- and fourth-place teams will receive $25,000.

The four head coaches for the NBA All-Star Game will come from the coaching staffs of the teams with the best regular-season record in each conference through the games played on Sunday, February 2. Given their current advantage, they will be the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Cavaliers head coach Kenny Atkinson (a dual Spanish-American citizen) and Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault will each coach one All-Star team, while an assistant coach from one of those teams will coach the third team and the other will coach the champion of the new first- and second-year all-stars.