The NBA Skills Challenge in 2016

The NBA Skills Challenge (officially named The Taco Bell Skills Challenge), is a National Basketball Association (NBA) contest held on the Saturday before the annual All-Star Game as part of the All-Star Weekend. First held in 2003, it is a competition to test ball-handling, passing and shooting ability.

Until the 2022 edition, two participants raced against each other on identical courses by first dribbling between five obstacles while running down the court. Next, the player must throw a pass into an upright hoop. Then, the players must dribble back the full length of the court for a lay up. Shortly after, the players must dribble back down the court and hit a three pointer from the top of the basketball key. The match ends when the first player hits the three pointer. The champion was decided via a single elimination tournament format, with a guard and a frontcourt player guaranteed to face off in the final round. Frontcourt players were first allowed and invited to participate in 2016, and the event has since crowned centers and forwards as winners, beginning with Karl-Anthony Towns that year^[1] and followed by Kristaps Porziņģis in 2017, Bam Adebayo in 2020, and Domantas Sabonis in 2021.

In the current format, used since 2022, three teams participate in a four-round competition. The first round is identical to previous editions, this time as a team relay, with the fastest team earning 100 points. The second round is a passing challenge where players must pass the ball through different targets, with the highest-scoring team also earning 100 points. The third round is a shooting challenge where players must make field goals from different spots, with the highest-scoring team earning 200 points. The two highest-scoring teams overall advance to the final round, which is a half-court shootout, where the fastest team to make a field goal from the half-court line wins the entire skills challenge.^[2] The format was slightly altered in 2023, with the challenge now ending after three rounds. The order of the first three rounds is reversed and the half-court shootout becoming a tiebreaker round. The current champions are Jordan Clarkson, Walker Kessler, and Collin Sexton from the Team Jazz in 2023.

Winners

Steve Nash (left), Dwyane Wade (center), and Damian Lillard (right) share the record for most titles won (2).

Season	Player(s)	Nationality	Team(s)	Time
2002–03	Jason Kidd	United States	New Jersey Nets	35.1 seconds
2003–04	Baron Davis	United States	New Orleans Hornets	31.6 seconds
2004–05	Steve Nash	Canada	Phoenix Suns	25.8 seconds
2005–06	Dwyane Wade	United States	Miami Heat	26.1 seconds
2006–07	Dwyane Wade (2)	United States	Miami Heat (2)	26.4 seconds
2007–08	Deron Williams	United States	Utah Jazz	25.5 seconds[a]
2008–09	Derrick Rose	United States	Chicago Bulls	35.3 seconds
2009–10	Steve Nash (2)	Canada	Phoenix Suns (2)	29.9 seconds
2010–11	Stephen Curry	United States	Golden State Warriors	28.2 seconds
2011–12	Tony Parker	France	San Antonio Spurs	32.8 seconds
2012–13	Damian Lillard	United States	Portland Trail Blazers	29.8 seconds
2013–14	Damian Lillard (2) Trey Burke	United States  United States	Portland Trail Blazers (2) Utah Jazz (2)	45.2 seconds
2014–15	Patrick Beverley	United States	Houston Rockets	—
2015–16	Karl-Anthony Towns	Dominican Republic	Minnesota Timberwolves	—
2016–17	Kristaps Porziņģis	Latvia	New York Knicks	—
2017–18	Spencer Dinwiddie	United States	Brooklyn Nets (2)	—
2018–19	Jayson Tatum	United States	Boston Celtics	—
2019–20	Bam Adebayo	United States	Miami Heat (3)	—
2020–21	Domantas Sabonis	Lithuania	Indiana Pacers	—
2021–22	Darius Garland Evan Mobley Jarrett Allen	United States  United States  United States	Cleveland Cavaliers	—
2022–23	Jordan Clarkson Walker Kessler Collin Sexton	Philippines[upper-alpha 1]  United States  United States	Utah Jazz (3)	—

All-time participants

• ^a The time is the all-time event record.^[3]
• ^b Jameer Nelson was injured and was replaced by Mo Williams.
• ^c Derrick Rose was injured and was replaced by Russell Westbrook.
• ^d Stephen Curry was injured and was replaced by Rajon Rondo.
• ^e For the 2013–14 season, the NBA All-Star Weekend Skills Challenge was revamped to have 4 teams of two players compete to a two-round time relay-style course.
• ^f John Wall was replaced by Patrick Beverley due to resting purposes.
• ^g Michael Carter-Williams was replaced with his teammate Robert Covington due to injuries. Covington would be replaced by Elfrid Payton due to resting purposes.
• ^h Jimmy Butler was replaced by Dennis Schröder due to a shoulder injury.
• ⁱ Starting with the 2014–15 season, the NBA All-Star Weekend Skills Challenge was revamped to a best of 8 tournament where after 8 players competed in the first round, only 4 would go to the semi-final round and 2 would participate in the championship round.
• ^j Defending champion Patrick Beverley would be replaced by rookie Emmanuel Mudiay due to an ankle injury.
• ^k Joel Embiid was replaced by Nikola Jokić due to a knee injury.
• ^l Kristaps Porziņģis was replaced by Andre Drummond due to a torn ACL injury.
• ^m Donovan Mitchell was replaced by Buddy Hield after Mitchell replaced Aaron Gordon for the Slam Dunk Contest.

Tournament Bracket (2015–2021)

Starting with the 2015 edition of the Skills Challenge, a tournament format was adopted.

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

Sponsors

Notes

References

External links

• 2010 Skills Challenge
• 2009 Skills Challenge
• 2008 Skills Challenge
• 2007 Skills Challenge
• 2006 Skills Challenge
• 2005 Skills Challenge
• 2004 Skills Challenge