After the 2018 All-Star Game, in which Team LeBron claimed a 148-145 victory over Team Stephen at Staples Center in Los Angeles, Commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN Radio: “When we sat with the union and we came up with this format, we all agreed, let’s not turn something that’s 100 percent positive into a potential negative to any player.

“But then, maybe we’re overly conservative because then we came out of there, and the players were: ‘We can take it. We’re All-Stars. Let’s have a draft.’ So it sounds like we’re going to have a televised draft next year.”

San Antonio Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan, then a member of the Toronto Raptors, added at the time: “Televise it. Give the people what they want to see. I think everybody wants to see it. At the end of the day, every single person that gets picked, you are an All-Star, so it doesn’t matter where you really go, so I think televise it.”

Curry came away so pleased with the new setup that he said he hoped to be a captain again this season, noting that he spent his spent his formative years as a young player in Charlotte, host city for the 2019 All-Star Game. But that will require Curry to beat James in fan balloting now that James resides in the same conference.

Once the captains and the players who make up the All-Star selection pool are identified in January, much of the external guesswork that this new format generates will inevitably focus on who gets selected last.

The last pick in the inaugural All-Star draft came down to the San Antonio forward LaMarcus Aldridge and the Boston big man Al Horford. James chose Aldridge, leaving Horford for Curry.