1985 NBA All-Star Game

Result

MVP: Ralph Sampson

Box score

MVP: Ralph Sampson.

Bench (10+ points): Rolando Blackman (15), Larry Nance (16), Norm Nixon (11)

Bench (10+ points): Terry Cummings (17), Bernard King (13)

Game context

The 1985 All-Star Game, the 35th edition, was played February 10 at Indianapolis's Hoosier Dome (with All-Star Saturday events held the night before at the smaller Market Square Arena), drawing an enormous crowd of 43,146 to the football-sized dome — a testament to the growing commercial pull of the event even in a smaller media market. Dominique Wilkins beat a rookie Michael Jordan in the Slam Dunk Contest the night before, an early sign of the marketing power the dunk competition was starting to generate for the league. Houston Rockets center Ralph Sampson was named MVP for the Western Conference's 140-129 win, finishing with 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting, four made free throws, and a game-high-tying 10 rebounds in 29 minutes. The game was tied 68-68 at halftime before the West, coached by a squad built around Sampson, George Gervin (23 points), and a deep supporting cast, pulled ahead 97-92 through three quarters and cruised from there. For the East, Isiah Thomas (22 points) and Larry Bird (21 points) led the scoring, while Moses Malone grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds in a losing effort. The game itself is remembered today at least as much for the players on its rosters as for its outcome: a still-developing Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon, both playing in their first (Jordan) or an early (Olajuwon) All-Star Game, shared the floor with established legends Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bird, offering fans an early glimpse of the generational torch-passing that would define the league over the following decade. Sampson, a 7-foot-4 forward-center taken first overall in the 1983 draft, was at this point regarded as one of the game's brightest young talents, and his MVP performance — built on a mix of interior scoring and rebounding rather than highlight-reel dunks — reflected the more traditional, back-to-the-basket game that still dominated NBA frontcourts in the mid-1980s, even as the perimeter revolution associated with Bird, Magic, and soon Jordan was already reshaping the sport around them. Sampson's career would be shortened by chronic knee injuries within a few years, making this MVP turn something of a career peak rather than a launching point, a poignant footnote given how much promise he showed on this stage. The crowd of 43,146 set a new NBA All-Star Game attendance record at the time, surpassing the mark set at the Pontiac Silverdome in 1979, part of a broader mid-1980s trend of moving the game into football-scaled domes to chase bigger live gates; Houston's Astrodome would push the record higher still just four years later. Sampson, at 7-foot-4, remained one of the tallest players ever to win the award, a distinction that made his MVP turn a notable outlier among the mostly guard- and forward-driven honorees of the era.

Sources

• Basketball-Reference — NBA All-Star Game History
• Basketball-Reference — NBA & ABA All-Star Game MVP (Kobe Bryant Trophy)
• Wikipedia — 1985 NBA All-Star Game