Team Cavaliers Wins NBA All-Star Skills Challenge Over Team Warriors

Perhaps the least-loved of All-Star Saturday night's festivities, the Kia Skills Challenge, is now in the books for 2025.

In San Francisco's Chase Center, four starry two-man squads did what they could to enliven a fairly listless event.

Cleveland Cavaliers All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley, San Antonio Spurs All-Star center Victor Wembanyama and former All-Star point guard Chris Paul, Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green and Moses Moody, and the top two picks in the 2024 NBA Draft — Atlanta Hawks forward Zaccharie Risacher and Washington Wizards big man Alex Sarr (dubbed "Team Rooks") — competed in what is essentially a grade-school obstacle course for a crowd of indifferent fans checking their phones until the 3-Point Contest and Slam Dunk Contest could tip-off.

The Spurs went first by trying to skimp on the jump-shooting component of the contest — heaving 3-point attempts with no intention of aiming in an effort to more expediently run through the course. They were promptly disqualified, as Ben Golliver of The Washington Post reports. Teams have to force up at least three valid shot attempts while running through the course.

Paul, true to form, protested the ruling on the sidelines while the other teams competed. TNT's Allie LaForce attempted to score an interview with Paul and Wembanyama on the sidelines but was denied by a league official.

In the first round, four teams compete in a relay —players attempt a bounce pass and then dribble into a chest pass, make a triple from the top righthand side of the arc, then another jumper at the free throw line near the elbow, shoot a corner 3-pointer over a windmill obstacle, and then wrap up with a fourth jump shot attempt. The two teams with the best times advance and repeat the course.

The Cavaliers and hometown Warriors advanced from the semifinal round.

In this year's competition, Team Cavaliers proved to be the eventual victor when Draymond Green struggled to complete a chest pass.

The real question, of course, is this: will anyone aside from those players and their families even remember they won by next year's All-Star Weekend?

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Former three-time All-Star Wizards point guard Gilbert Arenas, who's become a major media personality through his Underdog Fantasy show "Gil's Arena," appeared to sum up how a lot of fans feel about the Skills Challenge and its place in All-Star Weekend festivities.

"What is the Skills Challenge?" Arenas joked. "'Oh, I can dribble around the cones, pass this little ball. Ooh, I gotta throw the ball, aw, I missed it. And now I gotta run down the court and dunk."

In fairness, the final shot just has to go in — it can also be a layup, midrange jumper, or triple try.

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"F--- that," Arenas said. "Do a 1-on-1 or a 2-on-2 matchup-up, that s--- is GRAVY... Man listen: 1-v-1, 2-v-2, and let that talent speak... If you made NBA players pay to get in there, you would [still] get a long list."

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