NBA All-Star Weekend Skills Challenge

• 1. Introduction

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  The NBA All-Star Weekend Skills Challenge, officially named the Kia Skills Challenge, ran on the Saturday before the All-Star Game every year it existed. It began in 2003 and continued through 2025, testing ball handling, passing, and shooting ability against a clock. In 2026, the contest disappeared from the lineup entirely, its slot handed to the returning Shooting Stars Competition. What did that original course actually require players to do? Why were centers and forwards barred from entering for years after the event started? And which players kept coming back to compete more often than anyone else?

• 2. The Original Course

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  Until the 2022 edition, two players raced head to head on identical courses to reach a three-pointer first. Each course opened with dribbling through five obstacles while sprinting the length of the floor. From there, the player threw a pass into an upright hoop before dribbling the full court back for a layup. The sequence closed with another trip down the floor and a three-point attempt from the top of the key. Whichever player made that shot first ended the race.

  At one point, the event was reshaped into four teams of two players, racing a two-round relay style course instead of a solo bracket. Another season rebuilt it again as an eight player tournament, with all eight racing in a first round. Four then advanced to a semifinal, and only two reached the championship round.

  A single elimination bracket ultimately decided the overall champion in most years. It was built so a guard and a frontcourt player were guaranteed to meet in the final round. That guaranteed matchup meant a frontcourt player actually had to be sitting in the bracket to begin with, something that would not happen until 2016.

• 3. Frontcourt Breakthrough

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  2016 marked the first year centers and forwards were allowed and invited to compete in the Skills Challenge at all. Karl-Anthony Towns won that inaugural frontcourt appearance, breaking what had been a run of guard-only champions. Kristaps Porziņģis followed as champion in 2017, then Bam Adebayo in 2020, and Domantas Sabonis in 2021.

  The tournament bracket format those players competed under actually dated back further, adopted starting with the 2015 edition of the Skills Challenge. Sabonis's win in 2021 closed out that one-on-one era. The very next year, the contest tore up its format completely.

• 4. Three Teams, Four Rounds

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  Starting in 2022, the Skills Challenge dropped the one-on-one duel for three teams competing across four rounds. One of those teams was always made up of players from the host team. Round one kept the original relay course, now run by a full team, with the fastest team earning 100 points. Round two became a passing challenge through marked targets, and the top scoring team again earned 100 points. Round three moved to shooting from different spots on the floor, worth 200 points to whichever team scored highest. The two top scoring teams then advanced to a half-court shootout. The first team to make a field goal from the half-court line won the entire competition.

  By 2023, the format shifted again. The contest now ended after three rounds instead of four, their order reversed. The half-court shootout was demoted to a tiebreaker, used only when scores were tied.

  That three-team format crowned four champions before the event ended. Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen won it first for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2021-22. Jordan Clarkson, Walker Kessler, and Collin Sexton followed, winning a third title for the Utah Jazz in 2022-23. Tyrese Haliburton, Myles Turner, and Bennedict Mathurin took it for the Indiana Pacers in 2023-24. Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley then closed out the format with a second Cleveland Cavaliers championship in 2024-25.

• 5. Records And Rivals

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  A Utah Jazz team set the event's fastest recorded relay time at 25.5 seconds, a mark that still stands as the all-time record. One other recorded relay, by contrast, came in at 45.2 seconds, the slowest time ever posted in the event's history.

  Evan Mobley of the Cleveland Cavaliers headlines the record book's list of multiple-time leaders. That group also includes Damian Lillard of the Trail Blazers, Steve Nash of the Suns, and Dwyane Wade of the Heat.

  Chris Paul appears more often in the bracket rosters than any other player, listed as a six-time participant across the years he competed. Tony Parker and John Wall each competed four times, while Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade, Isaiah Thomas, and Patrick Beverley each reached three appearances apiece. Reaching the bracket that many times over that many years meant plenty of these same names eventually had to be swapped out for someone else.

• 6. Injuries And Substitutions

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  Jameer Nelson's injury opened a spot that went to Mo Williams as his replacement. Derrick Rose's own injury later did the same, handing his slot to Russell Westbrook. Stephen Curry went down hurt in another year, with Rajon Rondo stepping in to take his place.

  John Wall was pulled from one roster simply to rest, with Patrick Beverley stepping in to take his place. Michael Carter-Williams' injury then opened a spot for his own teammate, Robert Covington, who was later pulled himself to rest and replaced by Elfrid Payton. Jimmy Butler's shoulder injury opened his roster spot for Dennis Schröder.

  Patrick Beverley, the defending champion, was replaced by rookie Emmanuel Mudiay after an ankle injury of his own. Joel Embiid's knee injury handed his slot to Nikola Jokić. A torn ACL then took Kristaps Porziņģis out of the field, in favor of Andre Drummond. Donovan Mitchell's own swap ran in a different direction. He left his Skills Challenge spot to replace Aaron Gordon in the Slam Dunk Contest instead, and Buddy Hield filled the vacancy he left behind. That switch came in the competition's final years, the same stretch when the event's sponsor name was about to change for the last time.

• 7. Sponsors And Sunset

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  989 Sports held the sponsorship for the event's first two seasons on record. PlayStation then took over naming rights for five seasons running. Taco Bell held the sponsorship longer than either of them, attached to the event for 13 seasons. Kia became the sponsor for the competition's final three seasons, the branding that gave the event the name it closed out under.

  The earliest time recorded in the event's history belongs to a New Jersey Nets team, clocked at 35.1 seconds. It came from the competition's opening years on the books.