This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

What if the NBA simply outlawed defense and let both teams score at will? Would more people watch that on TV?

I don't think so.

But the numbers for the 2017 NBA All-Star Game were up 3 percent from last year. An average of 7.8 million people watched the simulcast on TBS and TNT. That's the biggest audience for the event since 2013.

And whatever else you have to say about the Western Conference's 192-182 victory in New Orleans, you have to admit it was different. In a completely deranged kind of way.

It's not like what happened Sunday was unexpected or anywhere near unprecedented. The winning team actually scored fewer points this year than last, when the West beat the East 196-173.

The last time an All-Star Game score resembled your average NBA result was way back in 2001, when the East beat the West 111-110.

Since then, the average score has been 150.25,-140.5. It's a trend that's accelerated in recent years — in the last five All-Star Games, the average score has been 171.4-161.2.

To put that in context, NBA teams are averaging 105.5 points per game this season — Golden State is No. 1 at 118.2; Dallas is No. 30 at 98.1. (The Utah Jazz are 28th on that list, averaging 100.2 points.)

What the NBA is giving viewers with its All-Star Game is something that barely resembles what we see on TV during the regular season and playoffs. The average score of last year's seven-game NBA Finals was Cleveland 100.4, Golden State 99.6 — the Cavaliers never scored more than 120; the Warriors topped out at 110.

So yes, whether it's by accident or by design, the All-Star Game is a distinctive product. And whether by accident or design, it makes sense.

The NBA All-Star Game is meaningless. It's not like Major League Baseball, which awards home-field advantage in the World Series to the league that wins.

It would be excruciating to watch on TV if one team eked out an 85-81 win in the NBA All-Star Game.

The thinking seems to be if you're going to play a game that doesn't mean anything, why not try to make it fun? Why not have some of the game's best players race up and down the court, make acrobatic moves and just have a good time with it?

It's an exhibition, just like the dunk contest.

(And by the way, All-Star Saturday Night, which includes the dunk contest — averaged 5.63 million viewers on TNT, up 1 percent from 2016.)

You've got to give the viewers a reason to watch or you're not different than the … yawn … Pro Bowl, which drew 5 percent fewer viewers than the NBA All-Stars this year.

If it works for the NBA All-Star Game, why not play every game like this? Wouldn't TNT, ESPN and ABC — not to mention ROOT Sports Rocky Mountain — draw a lot of viewers for games with scores in the 160s and 170s?

No. Ignoring the question of whether the players could pull off that 82 times a year before the postseason, it wouldn't take long for defense-less basketball to get boring.

Sunday's ratings show us that quite clearly. The TV audience peaked at 8.5 million viewers in the first 15 minutes of the telcast and declined after that.

And while this NBA All-Star Game averaged 7.8 million viewers, the 2016 NBA Finals averaged 20.17 million, peaking with 35.9 million for Game 7.

Although the NBA Finals actually mean something.

Scott D. Pierce covers TV for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.