Pirasanth Gunasekaram and Kevaughn Wilson
The 69th NBA All-Star game will be different than years pasts to honour the former Los Angeles Lakers superstar, Kobe Bryant.
The NBA announced new rules on Jan. 30 for the upcoming All-Star game in Chicago this weekend.
Humber News Kevaughn Wilson filed a video report on the NBA Honouring the legendary basketball legend.
Usually, games are set at 12 minutes for each quarter.
This time, it will just be the first three quarters that will have the normal time limit.
The scores from team LeBron — headed by LeBron James — and team Giannis — headed by Giannis Antetokounmpo — in the first three quarters will reset back to zero after each one.
At the start of the fourth quarter, the scores will combine for the respective teams and the winner will be determined by the team that has the most points overall.
The final quarter will not have a time limit and will only end when the first team gets 24 points. The score of 24 is a tribute to the jersey that Kobe wore for most of his career.
Team Giannis will wear the number 24 to pay respect to Kobe while team LeBron will wear the number two in honour of Kobe’s 13-year-old daughter, Gianna Bryant who also died during the helicopter crash last month which killed seven other people.
Bryant was an 18-time NBA All-Star and a four-time All-Star game MVP.
He had the second-most All-Star appearances behind former Lakers centre Kareem Abdul-Jabbar who had 19.
Kobe is tied with former Atlanta Hawks centre, Bob Pettit for the most All-Star MVP with four.
The All-Star Game will be this Sunday.
Lakers forward LeBron James and Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard, Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo, Toronto Raptors forward Pascal Siakam and 19 others will participate in the game at United Centre.