The NBA made an exciting change to its All-Star Game draft this year. Follow for more NBA flashscore news and updates here!
The draft will take place on the same day as the All-Star Game in which two team captains will draft rosters live prior to tip-off. Two team captains identified based on who’s the top fan vote-getters in both conferences. For a story about the best 3 point shooter in the current NBA, click here!
In the third and final return of the fan-votes, Los Angeles Lakers best player LeBron James dominated the Western Conference, while the Milwaukee Bucks two-time MVP and NBA Champion Giannis Antetokounmpo surpassed Kevin Durant and led the Eastern Conference.
This will be the sixth time that the NBA has used this format where captains have the privilege to choose their teams, but in the previous five editions, the rosters were picked days prior to the tip-off. LeBron James tied Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most appearances in NBA All-Star history and he will most likely surpass Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time leading league scorer this season. The All-Star weekend will begin on Feb.17 and will conclude on Feb.19, the day of the tip-off.
James has been the captain in each of the first five years, and according to the results of the voting released by the league on its own web page and twitter account late last week, it is quite certain that he will be on his sixth captaincy this year.
However, on the east side, the race was very tight as Durant and Antetokounmpo both on a neck-to-neck race. Kevin Durant was the early leader among East players in the first and second return, then Antetokounmpo’s votes skyrocketed in the recent balloting, surpassing Durant for captaincy.
“I want to play. I want to be a part of all these events,” Durant said in an interview.
For the past two editions, Durant got the captaincy as the East’s voting leader, while Antetokounmpo also earned it twice, in 2019 and 2020.
The starters will be selected based on the overall balloting counts from each conference – the top three frontcourt players and top two guards will be selected as starters. The fan voting counts to the total 50% of the balloting, then a media vote counts for just 25% and the last 25% accounts to NBA players. The reserves are selected by NBA coaches, seven will be chosen from each conference.
The new format for the all-star draft will add much needed spice to the excitement of the All-Star which surely fans will really wait and love to witness – given the fact that some players have tension within each other (pertaining to Giannis and Harden beef during 2019), and some wanted to play with each other like when LeBron picked Steph Curry in the last year’s all-star game.
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