For the 21st straight season, LeBron James will start the NBA All-Star Game.
However, Victor Wembanyama will have to wait.
The NBA All-Star Game starters were announced Thursday and there are a lot of familiar names, such as LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant. While there were some new starters (hello, Jalen Brunson!), there were no big surprises.
As a reminder, the All-Star Game starters — two guards and three frontcourt players — are chosen by a composite of fan votes (50%), player votes (25%), and media votes (25%). The seven reserves for each conference — which will be announced next week — are determined by a vote of NBA coaches, and that is where the real snubs will happen.
Let’s look at the starters:
Western Conference Starters
G. Stephen CurryG. Shai Gilgeous-AlexanderF. Nikola JokicF. LeBron JamesF. Kevin Durant
Eastern Conference Starters
G. Jalen BrunsonG. Donovan MitchellF. Giannis AntetokounmpoF. Karl-Anthony TownsF. Jayson Tatum
Notes on these starters:
• Kevin Durant barely edged out Victor Wembanyama for the final starting frontcourt spot in the West. Durant finished third in the fan vote, second in the player vote and was fifth by the media. Wembanyama finished fourth in the fan and player vote but was second by the media. However, when added together (with the fan vote being 50% of the total), that was enough to get Durant another All-Star Game start.
• You can bet this year will be the last year for at least a decade that Wembanyama is not voted an All-Star Game starter, but you can be sure this will be his first All-Star Game. The coaches will vote him in.
• LaMelo Ball led the fan voting to be the East backcourt starter, but he did not get the backing of the media (who had him seventh) or players (who had him third). When all the votes were tallied, he fell short. The real question: Do the coaches feel like the media did and keep Ball from being an All-Star? My guess is will not send him to San Francisco.
• Damian Lillard was fourth in the East backcourt voting.
• Luka Doncic, despite missing considerable time with a strained calf and other injuries this season, finished third in voting for the West front court. He is expected to be out injured until close to the All-Star break, we’ll see if the coaches send him to the All-Star Game.
• Anthony Edwards was fourth in West backcourt voting.
• The Knicks have two starters in the East, with Brunson and Towns, more than the Cavaliers or Celtics.
• Paolo Banchero of the Magic was fourth in the voting for a frontcourt spot. It is likely he does not make the All-Star game at all, it’s tough to see the coaches picking him as a reserve after he missed so much time with a torn oblique this season (he has played in just 11 games heading into Thursday night).
• Evan Mobley was fifth and Jaylen Brown sixth in voting for the East front court. Those two almost certainly will be headed to San Francisco as reserves.
• All these guys will not be playing together. The NBA has changed the All-Star Game format this season, attempting to spark some intensity and real competition into a headline game that has been almost unwatchable in recent years.
The 12 All-Stars from each conference (24 players in total) will be divided into three teams of eight players each, with those teams drafted by the former players on TNT’s Inside the NBA: Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, and Kenny “The Jet” Smith. Those three teams, plus the winning team from Friday night’s Rising Star Challenge (a game of rookies and second-year-players), will enter into a four-team knockout-style tournament with games to 40.
It’s a mini-tournament of shorter games that the league hopes will motivate players to play a little defense. We’ll see how that goes.