Lebron James (Los Angeles Lakers) and Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets) will be the captains of the two NBA All-Star teams, which will be played on February 20 in Cleveland (USA). The NBA announced this Thursday the ten starting All-Star players, among whom LeBron James and Kevin Durant were elected captains as they were the two names that received the most votes (one for each conference). LeBron and Durant were also chosen as captains in last year’s All-Star. The question remains whether Durant will make it to the All-Star since he injured his knee earlier this month and still has several weeks to recover.
Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors), Ja Morant (Memphis Grizzlies, first All-Star pick), Nikola Jockic (Denver Nuggets) and Andrew Wiggins (Golden State Warriors, first All-Star pick) are the other four starters picked from the Western Conference. DeMar DeRozan (Chicago Bulls), Bring Young (Atlanta Hawks), Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks) and Joel Embid (Philadelphia 76ers) were chosen as the other four starters within the Eastern Conference.
The names of the ten starters come from a calculation that takes into account the online vote of NBA fans (50% of the total), the choices of the league’s players (25%) and the opinions of the media. communication (25%). Although five starters are elected from each conference (one captain and four players), that doesn’t mean they’re going to line up in East vs. West blocks.
Traditionally, the All-Star played the best players in the Western Conference against the best in the Eastern Conference. However, the NBA changed the format of this meeting in 2018 to give it one more point of competitiveness and emotion. After the announcement of the two captains and the other eight All-Star starters, the next step is the selection of the fourteen reserves, which are chosen by the 30 NBA coaches and will be announced on February 3. The two captains will then meet on February 10 for the All-Star Draft, a process in which they take turns choosing their team members regardless of which conference they play in. The only rule in the draft selection is that they first have to choose from the eight starting players before they start selecting from the reserves.
Also, the coaches of both teams will be announced two weeks before All-Star weekend (February 18-20).