NBA All-Star starters were named, and LeBron James and Tyrese Haliburton will be in the starting lineups.
Tyrese Haliburton, a hometown hero, was picked for his first NBA All-Star Game, and LeBron James was picked to make their record 20th straight start in one.
Voting results were shown on TNT Thursday night for the NBA classic on February 18 at Bainbridge Fieldhouse to Indianapolis. Haliburton will start at point guard for the East for the Pacers on their home court.
Along with him will be Damian Lillard, a guard from Milwaukee, Joel Embiid, a center from Philadelphia and the current NBA MVP, Giannis Antetokounmpo, a forward from Milwaukee who got the most votes from fans overall, and Jayson Tatum, a forward from Boston.
Along with James, the West will have Dallas guard Luka Dončić, Oklahoma City guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver center Nikola Jokic (who won the NBA Finals MVP award last year), and Phoenix forward Kevin Durant.
Durant, a 13-time All-Star, wasn’t in February. Not hurt at all while playing the real game since 2019.
James, 39, is the star forward for the Lakers, the NBA’s all-time top scorer, and the West’s most popular vote-getter.
He has started each All-Star Game since 2005 as well as broke Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record for most All-Star selections.
Like Haliburton, this will be Gilgeous-Alexander’s first start as well as a second trip to the All-Star game. Haliburton or James are both out for their teams because of nagging leg injuries. Hopefully, they will be fit enough to play in the All-Star Game.
The fan vote decided who would start, with 50% of the vote. The players’ votes and the media’s votes each made up 25%.
The NBA announced on February 1 the seven reserve players for each conference. The head coaches of those conferences will choose the players.
In the East, fans chose Hawks guard Trae Young over all the other guards. The media chose Knicks guard Jalen Brunson to start, and the players chose 76ers guard Tyrese Maxey.
The fan vote for Lillard with the most points put him in third place, tied with Brunson for third place in total points, and he made it to his eighth All-Star Game on a tiebreaker. Curry has been an All-Star nine times, and he has started all eight of the games he has taken part in (he was hurt last year).
Western fans chose Stephen Curry, the best Warriors player of all time, over Gilgeous-Alexander, yet among players and the media, Gilgeous-Alexander got the most votes.
Before Thursday, he was averaging 26.7 points as well as shooting 40.1 percent from 3-point range.
He also leads the league with 172 3s, but the Warriors are having a tough time right now. Gilgeous-Alexander and Dončić’s stats and wins were too much for Curry to handle.
The 73rd NBA All-Star Game will go back to the old format, which was last seen at the 2017 All-Star Game in New Orleans. Players will play for both the East and West conferences instead of playing like they were on a playground to see which players got the most votes from each conference.
The game will also have four 12-minute quarters like a normal game, instead of the “Elam” scoring model that has been used since then. In this model, each team sets a goal score in an untimed fourth quarter to decide who wins Game 2020 in Chicago.
There are still captains, and they are chosen based on the total amount of votes in each conference. James will be captain for the seventh occasion in his career, the sixth year in a row outside of the West and the seventh year overall. Antetokounmpo will lead the team for a third time.
Fans are shocked by the names of the top -10 vote-getters who will play in the 2024 NBA All-Star game. Fans voted for the stars who will start in the 73rd All-Star game.
Giannis Antetokounmpo for the Milwaukee Bucks was recently named team captain for the Eastern Conference. He has been picked for eight straight All-Star games. James, a forward for the LA Lakers, was named team captain of the Western Conference.
After 20 years, James is being named a star for a record-breaking 20th time. James had not lost in an exhibition match since 2017, which was also the last time the East played the West.
Since his rookie year, James has never missed an All-Star game. Three times, he was named Most Valuable Player in the All-Star Game. For the past six seasons, he has been captain when the league held a draft for all 24 players.