2025 NBA All-Stars: Selecting the West starters and reserves (sorry, LeBron and KD!)

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(Grant Thomas/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

For the sixth straight year, the NBA asked me if I wanted to be one of the media members who votes on which players should start in the NBA All-Star Game. I said yes; here’s how I used my ballot.

(Quick refresher: You vote for three frontcourt players and two guards in each conference. Fan voting makes up 50% of the final result, with player and media ballots accounting for 25% each.)

All stats and records entering Tuesday’s games.

West All-Star starters

FC Nikola Jokić, Nuggets

FC Anthony Davis, Lakers

FC Victor Wembanyama, Spurs

G Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder

G Stephen Curry, Warriors

The shoo-ins: As was the case last season, my ballot began with Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokić, at this point seemingly in line to be the top two finishers in MVP voting for a second consecutive season. If you’re reading this, I probably don’t have to sell you on either of them too hard at this point, so I’ll try to keep this brief:

Gilgeous-Alexander is tied for the league lead in scoring, averaging 31.5 points per game on pristine 53/35/90 shooting splits, as the driving (and I mean that literally) force behind a Thunder team that leads the West, is on pace for 68 wins, and outscores opponents by a mammoth 18.9 points per 100 possessions when he’s on the floor — the largest margin of any player in the NBA, according to Basketball Reference.

SGA has made All-NBA First Team the last two seasons and finished second in MVP voting last season, and he’s been even better this year — nearly impossible to keep from getting to his spots and doing whatever damage he wants once he arrives. Oh, and he’s also second in steals and top-25 in deflections for what has a chance to go down as the stingiest defense since the ABA-NBA merger. Total no-brainer.

So, too, is this friggin’ guy:

Jokić is a literal handful of assists away from joining Oscar Robertson and his new running buddy Russell Westbrook as the only players in NBA history to average a 30-point triple-double. He remains the most efficient point producer on the planet: third in the NBA in scoring at a career-high 30.1 points per…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/2025-nba-all-stars-selecting-the-west-starters-and-reserves-sorry-lebron-and-kd-155429628.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2025-01-22 15:54:00

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