The King of the Hill, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James continues to amaze and is extending his All-Star records. And Giannis Antetokounmpo is the choice of the people, again.
The NBA revealed the starters, some of them anyway, on TNT’s pregame show on Thursday night, for the modified All-Star Game, and there were not many surprises or snubs. James is now officially an All-Star for the 21st time, and Antetokounmpo is now the ninth player to win the fan vote in consecutive seasons.
The New York Knicks Jalen Brunson and Cleveland Cavaliers Donovan Mitchell are the Eastern Conference guards. Boston Celtics Jayson Tatum and New York’s Karl-Anthony Towns are the East frontcourt players alongside Antetokounmpo. Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry and NBA leading scorer Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Oklahoma City Thunder are the Western Conference guards. Phoenix Suns Kevin Durant and Denver Nuggets Nikola Jokic are the West frontcourt players alongside James.
The starters were selected through a system of weighted balloting: 50% was fan voting, 25% was a media panel and 25% was voting by current players.
There are 14 more All-Stars yet to be announced, and they will be chosen in a vote of the league’s 30 head coaches. That list will be revealed next Thursday on January 30, and the All-Star Game, now games, really, takes place in San Francisco at the Chase Center on February 16.
Among the candidates for those reserve spots: San Antonio’s Victor Wembanyama, the Lakers’ Anthony Davis, Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, Dallas teammates Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, reigning All-Star Game MVP Damian Lillard of Milwaukee, Miami’s Tyler Herro, Atlanta’s Trae Young and Charlotte’s LaMelo Ball, who topped East guard fan voting.
Embed from Getty ImagesThere will be a minimum of at least 15 different players who “start” at the All-Star Game this season. It is the debut of a new All-Star format, with three games for the price of one. The 24 All-Stars will be drafted into three teams of eight players each by TNT personalities and former NBA greats Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny ‘The Jet’ Smith.
Those three teams will be entered into a four-team tournament, with the remaining squad made up of NBA rookies and sophomore players from the Rising Stars event on All-Star Friday. There are two semifinal games, with the winners meeting in a championship game. The games should go quickly; the first team to reach 40 points wins.
The last two All-Star Games rewrote the offensive record books and not in a good way. Boston’s Tatum set an individual record with 55 points in 2023, and last year’s final score was 211-186, the highest-scoring All-Star Game in history.
James is now in line to become the third player to appear in the All-Star Game after turning 40. The others: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who did so at 40 and 41, and Dirk Nowitzki, formally of the Dallas Mavericks, whose All-Star finale came when he was 40.
James, a pick for 21 straight years, now has two more All-Star selections than anyone else in NBA history (Abdul-Jabbar was a 19-time pick) and is three years clear of anyone else for the longest streak of consecutive selections. The late Kobe Bryant was chosen for 18 consecutive All-Star Games, the second-longest such streak.
James is also set to start for the 21st consecutive year. The second-longest streak of All-Star starts is 13, by Boston’s Bob Cousy.
Antetokounmpo led the way with more than 4.4 million fan votes, giving him the most in that area for the second consecutive year.
The other players who have been the overall top fan choice in back-to-back seasons were James, Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, Vince Carter, George Gervin, Magic Johnson, Grant Hill and Yao Ming.
Bryant led the fan voting four times and Dwight Howard did twice, but neither of those players ever did it in back-to-back years.
