Since the NBA is considering altering the format of the All-Star Game, I have some ideas.

USA vs. The World has more juice than ever, from an NBA perspective. Think about the starting lineup the Americans would have to face: Nikola Jokić at center, Luka Dončić and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the backcourt, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Victor Wembanyama as the forwards. USA’s starting five ain’t a joke: Anthony Davis at center, LeBron James and Kevin Durant at forward, Stephen Curry and Anthony Edwards in the backcourt.

Or how about the old heads vs. the next generation? The under-30s against the gray beards. Or, make the dividing line the 2014 draft — halfway between LeBron’s draft and the last one. Turn it into a full-on NBA culture war. Gen Z vs. the Millennials. Make fans pick a side and divide San Francisco’s Chase Center, this season’s host arena, in half.

Oh, wait. Just thought of an even better alteration. The idea to end all ideas, sure to make the All-Star Game spectacular. It’s so clear a solution, it’s hard to believe no one in the NBA hasn’t already thought of it. So sure a fix is this, it might actually sound like a crazy idea.

PLAY HARD.

If not 100 percent, then 75. If not for the whole game, for a half. Even for just the final quarter.

Boom. Problem solved.

Any format changes are but Scotch Tape. Any concocted gimmicks are covering up the real issue like lacquering barbecue sauce on dry beef. The one thing everyone wants is to see the best players earnestly compete against each other.

Figure out what it takes to make that happen and do that. Because no one really wants to see defense powered by apathy and deep 3-pointers hoisted without regard. Otherwise, Washington Wizards games on League Pass would be a party.

The lure of the All-Star Game isn’t simply to see the best players. It’s to witness them face each other. There aren’t any real stakes. So the lone draw is the rare occasion to see opposing teams loaded with superstars go at each other.

The All-Star Game once was the only place to see this collection of stars together. To see what type of personality they had and how they interacted with each other. It was the chance to see some of the new stars you heard about but didn’t get to watch usually.

But in the modern era, we see all of them all of the time. The way social media has reconfigured the landscape and the access to games through cable and streaming already gave them high visibility. And now they’re all pushing podcasts like aunties peddling Mary Kay in the ’90s. The sheer novelty of their presence has been diminished, the pageantry of the annual showcase undermined.

Undoubtedly, the mere gathering of such stars will always be a spectacle. You just don’t get the 10 best players of any era together outside of the All-Star Game, at least not in their prime. But such only increased the demand for a dramatic end to the weekend. The one way to secure it is to find a solution that prompts true competition.

We know they get after it. We know they’ll go hard. All it took was a trip to Las Vegas, some nail polish on the court and a $500,000 purse to make the NBA Cup real.

It’s a little more complicated than players ratcheting up their intensity. It’s not just on the players.

The league would have to make some sacrifices. Part of the issue the players face is the demand for their time during the weekend. The obligations seem to grow and will continue to do so as the league’s partners grow.

That’s the league’s money, so it must be done. But if it damages the product by limiting the potential of the All-Star Game, it’s worth reining in some of the demands.

GO DEEPER

How can the NBA fix the All-Star Game? Our writers share their ideas

As I’ve been told, the players’ preparation is so dramatically different at All-Star. The practices aren’t real, much more like the open-to-the-public practices teams do for their fans. The intrusiveness of the spectacle compromises pregame regimens.

If taking on the Utah Jazz requires full preparation, taking on the best in the league is worthy of it too. If the potential for injury in an exhibition game is a concern, it’s for sure heightened by inadequate prep time. Especially for an All-Star roster replete with players over a decade in.

The NBA can do things to free them up. Give them space for a real practice, one without TV cameras and fans interrupting with cheers.

Clear their schedules for Sunday. Make it all about the game. Even do the eight-hour introductions on Saturday or make the videos on Sunday. An AI-generated hologram of Donovan Mitchell standing on the stage not only works but also fits the Silicon Valley vibes of an All-Star Game in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the players can warm up in the practice facility.

Prioritize the game by making sure they have no excuses not to go hard.

Everything else concocted in the name of entertainment value is rooted in this same principle. From the Elam Ending to the players’ draft themselves to money for chosen charities. It is all designed with the same aim — to manufacture a competitive spirit. To incentivize intensity. To put some juice into the showcase.

Allen Iverson led a 21-point comeback in the 2001 NBA All-Star Game, leading the East to an improbable win over Kobe Bryant and the West. (Andy Hayt / NBAE via Getty Images)

Who could ever forget the 2001 All-Star Game? The Eastern Conference squad, led by Allen Iverson, rallied from a 21-point fourth-quarter deficit to stun the West. It was the most riveting display for a generation. Maybe ever. A comeback for the ages.

It didn’t require some contrived format. They weren’t worried about getting embarrassed or being criticized. They weren’t deterred by the possibility of injury and the jeopardy it could bring. They weren’t obsessed with numbers and recognition.

Yet, they provided an All-Star Game moment for the ages. In the final eight minutes, they lived up to the moment, honored their grand reputations and treated the NBA audience in such a way we still remember. And they did it by doing the one magic solution.

They played hard.

(Top photo: Brian Sevald / NBAE via Getty Images)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The assignment was simple: Find the person who got the best tattoo to celebrate Michigan’s 2023 national championship.

Unsurprisingly, there were many contenders. Michigan fans are a passionate bunch, and quite a few of them wanted an indelible reminder of the Wolverines’ perfect season tattooed on their skin. One tattoo, discovered in an Instagram post that tagged Ann Arbor’s Lucky Monkey Tattoo Parlour, stood out above the rest. It was clear this story wouldn’t be complete without talking to the guy with the cartoon drawing on his calf of Jim Harbaugh holding a chicken and drinking a glass of milk.

That would be Jimmy McLaughlin, a 36-year-old nurse from Toledo, Ohio. In the course of reporting this story, it came to light that the Harbaugh tattoo was not the most outrageous piece of body art McLaughlin acquired in the wake of Michigan’s national championship.

“Also have a wolverine going to the bathroom on a toilet shaped like the horseshoe, lol,” McLaughlin wrote in a text message.

Excuse me?

“I always kinda thought the Horseshoe looked like a toilet,” McLaughlin explained over the phone. “I had this idea cooking for 10 years, but I had to wait to implement it. You can’t be getting a tattoo like that one on a 10-year losing streak.”

The tattoo is pretty much exactly as McLaughlin described it: colorful, campy and extremely on-brand for one of college football’s nuttiest rivalries. Living in Toledo, a few miles south of the Michigan state line, McLaughlin is surrounded by fans of both teams. Emboldened by Michigan’s three-year winning streak against the Buckeyes, he went through with his plan to get Ohio Stadium tattooed on his thigh in the shape of a porcelain commode.

This is the kind of thing that seems like a great idea when your team is 15-0 and basking in the afterglow of a national championship. But what about when your team is 6-5 and a 21-point underdog at the very stadium you lampooned on your leg? That’s a slightly different story.

After talking to proud tattoo owners before the season, The Athletic contacted them again this week to see how they were holding up amid Michigan’s difficult season. A tattoo is a lifelong commitment, something that’s there through thick and thin — just like the fans who display them. While McLaughlin has received some grief from the Ohio State fans in his life, he’s not discouraged. His tally for his year includes one natty, two new tattoos and zero regrets.

“We’re still the national champions until we’re not,” he said. “Until the clock strikes zero, you better believe every Ohio State fan in the vicinity is going to know about it.”

Another person who presumably does not regret his national championship tattoo is Harbaugh, whose Los Angeles Chargers played John Harbaugh’s Baltimore Ravens on Monday night. Beneath Harbaugh’s Chargers hoodie, he sported a Skinny M tattoo on his shoulder with Michigan’s 15-0 record, the result of a promise he made to his players.

Stephen Bateman, the Grand Rapids-based artist who did Harbaugh’s tattoo, has tattooed NFL cornerback Jalen Ramsey, NBA player Andre Drummond and several former Michigan players. One of his repeat customers is Braiden McGregor, the former Michigan defensive end and current New York Jet who has tattoos covering much of his body.

After the season, McGregor visited Bateman to get a rose and a College Football Playoff trophy added to the Block M on his shoulder. The subject of Harbaugh’s tattoo promise came up, and McGregor arranged for Bateman to do the honors when members of the championship team reunited in Ann Arbor for Michigan’s spring game. The design wasn’t technically challenging, but tattooing a famous football coach with the team looking on was a bit stressful.

“They all had their phones out, probably like 20 of them,” Bateman said. “He kind of just flexed and said he was impervious to pain.”

Bateman did several other championship tattoos, including one for Dillon Gates, a 32-year-old Michigan fan from Grand Rapids. Gates’ arm is covered from elbow to shoulder with a scene of Tom Brady, J.J. McCarthy, Blake Corum and other Michigan greats walking up the stadium tunnel. The tattoo took 30 hours to complete, Gates said, spread out over three sessions.

Gates has cousins in Columbus who are Ohio State fans, but even they had to admit the tattoo was an impressive piece of art. Gates has gotten similar reactions as he traveled around Big Ten country for his job buying used musical instruments.

“I was actually in Pennsylvania, and some guy at the hotel front counter asked me to hold up my arm,” Gates said. “He was like, ‘Dude, I don’t even like Michigan, but that’s an awesome tattoo.’ Mostly, for me, it’s like a badge of honor.”

Gates got the tattoo as part of a pact with a friend, Michigan fan Patrick Coleman. Coleman has a scene on his arm of McCarthy, Corum, Will Johnson and Donovan Edwards celebrating in front of the CFP trophy. When he thought about ways to commemorate the national championship, Coleman decided a tattoo was the most enduring symbol.

“I got all the memorabilia,” Coleman said. “I got posters and flags. I got the T-shirts. Seeing all the hard times we had to go through to finally get to the top, you gotta ink it on your skin so you can always remember it.”

(Courtesy of Stephen Bateman)

In terms of creativity, it’s hard to top McLaughlin’s tattoos. He wanted something no one else would have, something that captured a unique aspect of Michigan’s season. Harbaugh talked frequently about the chickens he raised in his backyard, and the idea of him holding a bird under his arm seemed like a fitting homage.

That tattoo gets lots of comments when McLaughlin runs into other Michigan fans. Somebody spotted the tattoo when McLaughlin was walking through the parking lot before the Michigan-Oregon game a few weeks ago, and before he knew it, he was getting free food and beer at a tailgate.

“Pretty much everyone’s reaction is the same,” McLaughlin said. “Everyone starts busting out laughing. A lot of people are like, ‘What’s up with the chicken?’ I have to explain it, and they’re like ‘Ok, that’s pretty funny.’”

Life after the national championship hasn’t been sunshine and roses for Michigan. The Wolverines have five regular-season losses for the first time since 2014 and are three-touchdown underdogs in Saturday’s game against the Buckeyes. For fans like McLaughlin, that has meant hearing more smack talk from rival fans who weren’t able to say much when Michigan was dominating the Big Ten.

McLaughlin said he’s taken the season in stride. His group chats lit up last week when Michigan landed five-star quarterback Bryce Underwood, and excitement is already building for the future. As for Saturday, McLaughlin plans to watch the game in his garage rather than showing off the toilet bowl tattoo in Columbus. The season hasn’t gone as planned, but if he could go back in time, McLaughlin wouldn’t change a thing.

“For me, it’s no regrets at all,” McLaughlin said.”I was at the Rose Bowl. I celebrated after the natty. Nothing will ever be able to take that feeling away from me.”

GO DEEPER

How much has Michigan’s defense changed under Wink Martindale — and what’s next?

(Top photos courtesy of Jimmy McLaughlin)

Ten months ago when the nights were longest, Ned Rice emailed total strangers to share his family’s unthinkable dilemma. These were doctors across the country who had not met and did not treat his 3-year-old daughter. Wynnie had brain cancer. This was how Rice, a Phillies assistant general manager, coped.

He had to gather as much information as he could.

“I have still to this day never googled medulloblastoma,” said Cary Rice, his wife. “Because I can’t handle it. And I’m an analytical thinker, too. But if it’s too emotional, I can’t do it.”

Everything about this felt impossible. Wynnie had lost her balance a few times — and now her parents faced a sudden and critical decision. Doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) told the Rices they could not treat Wynnie with radiation; she was too young. The neurocognitive damage from radiation would prevent her from having an independent adult life. But her chances of survival were better with radiation.

Ned Rice sought a second opinion from another leading children’s hospital. They told him it would be reckless not to use the treatment known to be the best — radiation — no matter the long-term effects. Rice had negotiated player contracts worth hundreds of millions — a high-stakes process that blends objective valuations with a subjective hand. But this was so different.

It was a parent’s worst nightmare.

Then Rice saw an email. A neuro-oncologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital named Richard Graham sent a lengthy reply to one of Rice’s cold calls. “I was really panicking,” Rice said. “He doesn’t even know who I am. He has his own patients and his own life.” Graham shared his advice. He became a frequent resource for Rice.

These small, thoughtful moments accumulated.

An unexpected gift at the doorstep. A video from Wynnie’s classmates. More responses from out-of-town doctors who would never meet Wynnie. Family members and friends who dropped everything to care for her two siblings. More gifts. Nurses who did not just look after Wynnie — but her parents, too.

“It hits you over and over again,” Rice said. “There’s so many people that want to help. Everybody does it in their own way.”

Rice called his former boss. These weren’t like the late-night talks Matt Klentak and he often had while they ran baseball operations for the Phillies. But it felt normal, even though Klentak worked for the Milwaukee Brewers and Rice was on leave from the Phillies.

The phone calls were cathartic. They could dive right into whatever was on Rice’s mind because Klentak knew the latest on Wynnie through an Instagram account the Rices created to chronicle her fight against cancer. It’s grown to more than 700 followers. Friends of friends of friends now reply to posts with, “Go Wynnie go!” The account is a raw look into life with pediatric cancer. It’s become a way for Ned and Cary to express complicated feelings.

More than anything, it’s opened a door. “Caregiver burnout is a common phenomenon,” said Jane Minturn, Wynnie’s neuro-oncologist at CHOP, “and (Ned and Cary) have worked together to limit this.” Wynnie knows she is sick, but she does not understand what brain cancer is. The burden is shared by everyone around her.

It is immense. Klentak could sense it, at times, during those late-night conversations. It is isolating. But Rice started to carry the goodness of those who had entered Wynnie’s universe.

“I couldn’t really relate to what he was going through,” Klentak said. “And I think very few people could. But that doesn’t stop people from wanting to help.”

The first sign of distress wasn’t alarming. Wynnie was a happy and healthy 3-year-old learning to move faster. That meant an occasional stumble. But Ned and Cary noticed their daughter’s balance wasn’t improving; it looked a fraction worse every week. They scheduled an appointment last December with their pediatrician.

He threw cotton balls across the room to Wynnie, who was content to play the game. She had to bend over and fetch them. She wobbled. The pediatrician agreed something seemed off. He wanted her to see a neurologist at CHOP. The next appointment wasn’t for five months. He suggested the Rices go to the CHOP emergency room — not because it was urgent, but to assuage any immediate concerns.

They took Wynnie on Dec. 21, 2023.

“Sure enough,” Rice said, “we had five neurologists in our room in a few minutes.”

Wynnie didn’t have any other symptoms. The doctors scheduled an MRI in three weeks. It could be a muscular disease. Maybe it was vertigo. The Rices visited family for Christmas and Wynnie vomited twice. CHOP rescheduled the MRI for Dec. 29 and, that morning, Wynnie threw up again. She stumbled a few more times.

A doctor summoned Ned and Cary during the MRI. He pointed to a screen. There was a large tumor in Wynnie’s brain. Wynnie was sedated for the MRI. The doctors wanted to do immediate surgery to remove the tumor. It was 4 p.m. on the Friday of a holiday weekend. The procedure lasted four hours; it would take a week to know whether the tumor was cancerous.

Everything had spiraled so fast.

“It’s a long process, but that was definitely a low point,” Rice said. “Those first few days — you took a mostly happy, healthy, sweet girl in for an outpatient MRI. She wakes up and you’re just like, ‘Will we ever see that girl again?’ That was really hard.”

Then Wynnie was diagnosed with medulloblastoma.

During that first trip to the E.R., before everything escalated, Rice was on the phone with Dave Dombrowski. Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s camp had instructed teams to make their last and best offers for the star free agent. Dombrowski communicated the number to Rice, who relayed it to Joel Wolfe, Yamamoto’s agent. Yamamoto signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers that night.

Rice did not mention where he was.

The day Wynnie underwent surgery, Rice called Phillies general manager Sam Fuld. He told him what was happening. Dombrowski was out of the country for a rare vacation; Rice talked to the Phillies’ president of baseball operations soon after New Year’s.

“We’ll see you when it’s over,” Dombrowski told him. “Take everything you need. We’ll completely cover it. Don’t worry about anything.”

John Middleton called a few hours later. The Phillies’ principal owner offered to connect the family with doctors. Cary is a lawyer and her firm, Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller, told her to take as much time as she needed. The Rices were fortunate; they had the means to pay for treatment and ample time to direct attention toward Wynnie. Acquaintances offered to help with whatever the family needed, but what they needed was a cure for cancer.

All they wanted was normal. It was an uncomfortable situation that didn’t always have to be uncomfortable.

“We just have this wonderful sort of village that kept showing up,” Cary said. “Kept calling. Kept texting. Even when I couldn’t respond. We’re just really grateful for that because we are still the same people. We still want to talk about things and do things that have nothing to do with cancer. We want to feel normal. We want to have hope for a normal future. The worst thing you can do or say is nothing.”

Wynnie sits on a bed at CHOP between cycles of her treatment. (Courtesy of the Rice family)

Wynnie lived on the third floor at CHOP for almost eight months. The Rices opted against radiation. But her treatment — alternating cycles of chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplants — was so grueling that most of it was inpatient. Ned and Cary would take 24-hour shifts with Wynnie. They were ships passing in the night without much interaction.

They found a community inside the hospital.

“These nurses, I mean, they’re not just nurses,” Cary said. “They’re therapists. They’re friends. They’re cheerleaders.”

Heidi Turner, one of Wynnie’s nurses, worked only overnights. That meant a lot of late-night bonding. Wynnie was discharged Aug. 23. The last night at CHOP, Turner handed Cary a letter to Wynnie.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” Cary said to Turner. “We’ll stop by and hopefully I’ll see you.”

She stared at Cary. The nurse replied she hoped to never see them again.

“And,” Cary said, “it just stuck with me because it’s such a weird feeling to have.”

Rice, who has been with the Phillies since 2016, stayed in contact with player agents and rival team executives last offseason but no longer served as the team’s main point of contact. The Phillies had started negotiating Zack Wheeler’s three-year, $126 million extension with B.B. Abbott, Wheeler’s agent at Wasserman. By January, Rice and Abbott had regular talks that started with 30 minutes about Wynnie and progressed to Wheeler’s contract.

“You’re never what you want to be for these families that are trying to talk about this,” Abbott said. “Because you just can’t be. It’s so all-consuming when you think, ‘My 3-year-old daughter has to go through this.’ It’s hard for parents and families to get their heads around exactly what’s getting ready to happen. The days and nights and hospitals. Watching their little girl lose her hair and be sick. All of this stuff that I knew was getting ready to come.”

For years, Abbott has raised awareness for pediatric cancer research through the Rally Foundation and the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation. “I just wanted to be more of a sounding board for him,” Abbott said. The Rices weren’t keeping Wynnie’s illness hidden; it was more of an open secret. Abbott decided to help subtly.

He asked Wheeler if he’d lend his name to a fundraiser for the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation near the end of spring training at the Phillies’ complex in Clearwater, Fla. Everyone knew it was for Wynnie, but no one had to say it. Word spread to the team’s front office and support staff. Dozens of Phillies employees had their heads shaved or orange streaks painted in their hair. Players made donations to the foundation.

Reliever Matt Strahm’s wife, Megan, organized a present from the Phillies’ wives and girlfriends. “An unbelievable, huge, outrageous gift wagon for Wynnie,” Rice said. He had not met Strahm’s wife until later that summer at the team’s family day.

“You’re amazing,” Rice said to her.

With Wynnie in the hospital, Rice watched from afar this year as the Phillies sprinted to first place. “The Banatic!” Wynnie said to her dad whenever the furry green mascot appeared on the screen. There are certain rhythms to the baseball season. It is monotonous but contains specific checkpoints. The Rices had none of that with Wynnie. There were no regular updates on her prognosis. They will not know how successful her treatments were until a scan sometime in December.

Their focus was singular. Get through today.

“Wynnie, she’s something,” Cary said. “She has this tiny little voice and she’s so sweet and gentle with everything she does. We always kind of considered her this little delicate flower. But she’s a beast.”

Wynnie at her 4th birthday party. (Ashley Blair Photography)

Two weeks ago, Wynnie had a birthday party. The Rices held it outdoors, at a playground by the Schuylkill River Park, because Wynnie’s immune system remains at risk. They had bagels and coffee and a face painter. Cary handed every kid a stuffed fox as a party favor. “Mr. Fox” was Wynnie’s constant companion in the hospital; Cary had so many at the house because people kept sending them when Wynnie would throw up on hers.

This was a celebration of Wynnie and the village that formed around her.

“We were surrounded,” Cary said, “by about 85 of the friends who have been there for us in so many different ways this year.”

Wynnie’s hair has started to grow back, although she wore a purple knit cap that covered her head at her party. Everyone could see the three purple flowers painted on her forehead.

But Wynnie felt sick near the end of the party. She went to the emergency room with croup. Another challenge. But she was 4 and she was here.

She wore her face paint to the E.R.

(Top image: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic. Photos: Ashley Blair Photography)