The East also has Adebayo, Jaylen Brown, DeRozan, Haliburton, Jrue Holiday and Randle
The West have selected Paul George, Gilgeous-Alexander, Jaren Jackson Jr., Lillard, Markkanen and Sabonis
Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers) and Ja Morant (Memphis Grizzlies) are among the reserves for the All-Star of the NBA, which will be held on February 19 in Salt Lake City (USA).
Along with Embiid, in the East were chosen this Thursday Bam Adebayo (Miami Heat), Jaylen Brown (Boston Celtics), DeMar DeRozan (Chicago Bulls), Tyrese Haliburton (Indiana Pacers), Jrue Holiday (Milwaukee Bucks) and Julius Randle (New York Knicks). In the West, in addition to Morant, Paul George (Los Angeles Clippers), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Oklahoma City Thunder), Jaren Jackson Jr. (Memphis Grizzlies), Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers), Lauri Markkanen (Utah Jazz) were selected. and Domantas Sabonis (Sacramento Kings). The 30 NBA coaches were in charge of choosing these 14 reserves. Four players received their first All-Star selections on Thursday: Haliburton, Gilgeous-Alexander, Markkanen and Jackson Jr.
As the NBA announced last week, LeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) will captain the two All-Star teams. With his pick this year, LeBron equaled Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record for most NBA All-Star selections with 19. scorer in league history, he has been chosen six consecutive times as captain since the NBA changed the All-Star format and his team has won every game so far. Antetokounmpo was captain in 2019 and 2020 but in the last two years he was ahead of Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets) in voting.
In addition to LeBron, in the West they were chosen as starters Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets) Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors) luka doncic (Dallas Mavericks) and zion williamson (New Orleans Pelicans). Jason Tatum (Boston Celtics) Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets), Kyrie Irving (Brooklyn Nets) and Donovan Mitchell (Cleveland Cavaliers) were selected in the East along with Antetokounmpo. The names of the ten starters come from a calculation that takes into account the voting of NBA fans (50% of the total), the elections of the league’s players (25%) and the opinions of the media ( 25%).
Although five starters and seven reserves are chosen by each conference, that doesn’t mean they’re going to line up in East vs. West blocks. Traditionally, the All-Star pitted the best players in the West against the best in the East. However, the NBA changed the format of this meeting in 2018 to give it more competitiveness and excitement. The main novelty of the 2023 All-Star is that the captains will take turns choosing the members of their respective teams just before the game begins. In previous editions, this team formation process was done days before the match. No matter what conference they play in, the only rule of the All-Star draft is that the captains have to pick from the eight starting players first before they start drafting from the reserves. Mike Malone (Denver Nuggets) will coach Team LeBron while Joe Mazzulla (Boston Celtics) will coach Team Antetokounmpo.