The highlight of the NBA All-Star Weekend 2024 won’t be returning in 2025. On Thursday, the league announced that there will be no NBA-WNBA shootout at this year’s All-Star Saturday. Last year’s event featured a thrilling 3-point contest, where Steph Curry of the Golden State Warriors triumphed over Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty, marking a significant moment for both men’s and women’s basketball.
However, neither player expressed interest in a rematch, which led to Thursday’s announcement. “We weren’t able to land on a plan we thought would raise the bar off of last year’s special moment,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass stated. “We all agreed not to proceed and will instead keep the focus on All-Star Sunday’s new format.”
NBA-WNBA shootout with Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu is off. NBA’s Mike Bass: “We weren’t able to land on a plan we thought would raise the bar off of last year’s special moment. We all agreed not to proceed and will instead keep the focus on All-Star Sunday’s new format.”
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) February 13, 2025
The idea for a rematch began to fade once Caitlin Clark reportedly declined to join a proposed format that would have included her and Ionescu competing against Curry and Klay Thompson. Clark expressed through her agency that she wants her first 3-point contest to be at the WNBA All-Star in Indianapolis this summer, a decision that WNBA star Cameron Brink publicly applauded. With Clark’s absence, hopes for a Curry-Ionescu rematch quickly evaporated, as noted by The Athletic’s Joe Vardon and Anthony Slater, neither player was keen on the idea.
League sources with direct knowledge of the negotiations said Curry and Ionescu were not interested in a rematch. They wanted to expand the competition to include WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark, and potentially Curry’s former teammate Klay Thompson. But when Clark declined in January, saying she “wants her first 3-point contest to be at WNBA All-Star in Indianapolis this summer,” it all but doomed the competition.
Despite last-ditch efforts by the NBA to salvage the event as late as Wednesday, the league couldn’t bring both sides together. There was even discussion of moving the competition to Sunday during a break in the revamped All-Star Game, but that concept never gained momentum. Thus, the most exciting addition to All-Star Weekend in years will slip away quietly — not with a bang, but with a half-hearted shrug.
