Philippine Basketball Association All-Star Game

The PBA All-Star Game is an exhibition game hosted annually by the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), matching the league's star players using various formats. It is the featured event of PBA All-Star Weekend. The All-Star game was first staged at The ULTRA on June 4, 1989.

The starting lineup for each squad is selected by a fan ballot, while the reserves are chosen by a vote among the head coaches of the league's teams. If a selected player is injured and cannot participate, the league officials select a replacement. The head coaches of the teams that entered the season's first conference, the Philippine Cup, are chosen as the coaches of the teams in the All-Star Game.

The annual All-Star Game was instituted in 1989 and has already evolved into different types of competition, more commonly in the following formats: Philippine national team vs. PBA All-Stars (adopted format for 2017), Rookies, Sophomores & Juniors (RSJ) vs. Veterans (lastl adopted in 2012), and North vs. South match-up (lastl adopted in 2016). The manner by which players to the All-Star Game varied through the years. Currently, the two coaches tapped to lead the two All-Star teams were the ones who selected their players but since the mid-2000s the starting five are selected through fan voting and the reserves would now be the ones chosen by the head coaches of all the PBA teams. For the 2005-2006 season, fans from the host city or province were given the choice to select the sixth man of each team. After each game, an All-Star Most Valuable Player (MVP) was chosen by writers covering the annual event.

Vergel Meneses had clearly stamped his mark on this mid-year festivities as he remains to be the only four-time All-Star MVP awardee collecting the award in 1995, 1998, 2000 and 2003. In its entire history, four players have been named multiple winners of the All-Star MVP award namely, Meneses, Benjie Paras (1994 and 1999), Asi Taulava (2004 and 2006), and Jayjay Helterbrand (2005 and 2007).

...
Wikipedia