During the 2025 NBA All-Star Weekend, Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu didn’t rehash their stellar 3-point contest from last year, and now we know why.
On Saturday evening, commissioner Adam Silver met with the media ahead of several All-Star festivities to answer questions related to the planned events. Naturally, many people wanted to know the answer to a major question.
Why didn’t the Steph vs. Sab rematch happen? Well, it didn’t feel right.
“It felt forced,” Silver said. “It lost that special feeling it had last year.”
Here’s more of Silver’s thoughts he shared:
“Last year was so magical—that competition—that it started to feel forced. I think there was concern from all of us that we just weren’t feeling it … Even though I had been public, I had said that I was very hopeful or said it was going to happen again … I think … that it just got to the point where—I don’t know how to say it other than we just weren’t collectively feeling it…”
“It just seemed like coming back here, as exciting as it might have been, that this just wasn’t the right time to do it. There’s no more to it than that. They’re both friends. They’re wonderful people. I’m sure there’s a part of them that recognizes they may be disappointing people, but I think they all felt, and I agreed with them, that it just didn’t feel right in the moment.”
Adam Silver said that after talking to Stephen Curry and Sabrina Ionescu, the idea of them repeating their competition from last season felt “forced,” which is what led to it not happening again this year.
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) February 16, 2025
Silver on why the Steph-Sabrina rematch did not happen:
“It felt forced. It lost that special feeling it had last year.” pic.twitter.com/z2Z0xkWiPk
— Naveen Ganglani (@naveenganglani) February 16, 2025
Silver’s explanation makes a lot of sense.
Invitee Caitlin Clark declined to participate, and ahead of the announcement, Ionescu revealed to USA TODAY Sports that she was unsure it would happen, indicating that plans weren’t concrete.
“Whether it happens this year or in the future, we both have a lot of basketball left, so we’ll definitely get to it at some point,” Sabrina explained. “It’s kind of TBD on that.”
There’s always next year.
Who knows? Maybe Curry will pull up to a WNBA All-Star Weekend and surprise everyone.
