The Lega Basket All Star Game is an all-star game organised annually by Lega Basket, in conjunction with RCS Sport and the Italian Basketball Federation.
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It brings together a selection of players from the Lega Basket Serie A (LBA), the highest-tier professional basketball league in Italy, to play between themselves, or against another opponent.
First held in 1982, the event has seen a fluctuating history, with numerous changes of format through the years, including the participation of the senior men's Italian national team.
For the 2016-17 season, the annual edition of the All-Star Game will not be held that gathered in a single game all the major stars of the Italian basketball league.
History
The Italian Basketball Federation had organised an All Star Game in 1980, to celebrate Italy's silver medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics. 12 May 1982, saw the first All Star Game organised by the Lega Basket, the entity responsible for organising the top two professional leagues in Italy, the first-tier Serie A and second-tier Serie A2.
Two teams from the respective divisions were chosen by the public, at the league's games a few weeks before the game, also selecting the coaches for the game played at the Palasport di San Siro in Milan.
For the November 1992 edition, the event was termed the All Star Game ULEB and was organised in partnership with the Spanish ACB League's organizing body, the ACB, seeing a squad from each league compete in Madrid. The formula was repeated the next year, this time in Rome.
The 1994 edition of the All Star Game ULEB, saw a team from the top-tier French Pro A League also take part. The three squads, mostly made up of foreign players, played each other in games of a single 20 minute quarter in Valencia's Fuente de San Luis.
The senior men's Italian national team has participated in a number of All Star Games. Originally, the squad of Serie A based players was very similar to the main squad, with only one player (the Spain-based Nikola Radulović) from the EuroBasket 2003 bronze medal team absent for the December 2003 edition.
In more recent editions, with the departure of a number of players abroad (to the NBA for example), the Italy squads have been more experimental, and have consisted mostly of reserve players and promising players.
The 2014 and 2015 editions saw the absence of EA7 Emporio Armani Milano players, as the club was involved in Euroleague games during the same period.
In November 2016, Lega Basket canceled the All-Star Game for the 2016-17 Serie A season. That was decided by the General Meeting of the LBA Clubs, met in Bologna in the headquarters of Legabasket. According to the President Egidio Bianchi, Legabasket is not able to produce an interesting format to make the All Star Game.
Three-Point Contest
The Three-point contest (Italian: gara del tiro da tre punti), known as the Festina Three Points Contest for sponsorship reasons, was first organised during the December 1986 edition, Oscar Schmidt is the record-holder with four wins, adding an unofficial title in December 2003 after beating the official winner Michele Mian in an extra contest. The latest (2015) edition saw the contestants try to score as many three-point field goals as possible from five shooting positions around the three-point line, with each position consisting of a rack with four balls worth three-points and a special "Money Ball" worth six, for a total of twenty five shots in one minute, with the highest score crowning the winner.
Slam dunk contest
The slam dunk contest (Italian: gara delle schiacciate), known as the Openjobmetis Slam Dunk Contest for sponsorship reasons, was first organised by Spain's ACB during the November 1992 and 1994 editions played in that country. The first time it was organised by Lega Basket was during the December 2005 edition, dunk specialist James White is the record-holder with two wins (Chandler Thompson won both ACB editions). White refused to defend his title in 2014, having decided to retire from dunk contests following his last place in the 2013 NBA Slam Dunk Contest. It formerly saw the contestants each have two dunk attempts, with the pair performing the best judged dunks reaching the final, where another couple of attempts crowned the winner. The 2015 edition saw the contestants separated into two teams, consisting of players DeQuan Jones and Tony Mitchell each paired with a member of the Da Move freestyle group, whose five attempts each were judged by a panel of experts and the public
Family Shootout
The Grundig sponsored Family Shootout was a one-off event organised during the April 2014 edition. It saw four pairs of current or former professional players from the same family contest successive rounds of four shots from different positions. The father-son pair of Nando and Stefano Gentile prevailed in the final over brothers Michele and Luca Vitali.
Under-23 game
The December 2003 edition saw a game played between mostly (but not exclusively) under-23 Italian players in view of judging their potential as part of the Belgrade 2005 project by the national team organisation. Andrea Michelori top-scored with 28 points in the game between Blues and Whites that finished 90-72.