by Adi Joseph, USA TODAY Sports

The NBA cares. And the NBA hopes you will care about its All-Star weekend festivities, too.

This year’s All-Star Saturday contests will feature a new, second-level competition. Think team track or gymnastics. The Eastern Conference and Western Conference contestants in the Shooting Stars, slam dunk, three-point and skills competitions will battle for points and a team victory, with Chris Paul and Dwyane Wade serving as captains.

We don’t know exactly how anything will be different, but it’s going to send $500,000 to charities. So that’s cool. From the NBA’s news release:

In addition, NBA Cares and State Farm will make a joint donation of $500,000 as part of the event, with $350,000 going to the winning conference’s charities and $150,000 to the runner-up conference’s charities. The Eastern Conference will be playing for Big Brothers Big Sisters and Make-A-Wish America, while the Western Conference will compete for Boys & Girls Club of America and Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign. The charities were selected by Wade and Paul, the NBA, and State Farm.

The basic idea is that players will earn their conferences points based on how they do in each competition. The competitors haven’t been announced yet, but logic says they will be split evenly from each conference, which wasn’t a mandate in the past.

Now, Paul and Wade certainly are qualified to help their teams in the skills challenge. Wade is a two-time winner, while Paul competed four times, though he didn’t win.

But let’s hope Wade doesn’t try to coach up Atlanta Hawks sharpshooter Kyle Korver on his three-point fundamentals and Paul leaves everyone alone on dunks, except to throw alley-oops.

… [For more on Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade will captain All-Star weekend, click here.]