First-time NBA All-Stars: Who’s a lock? Who’s on the bubble? Here are 10 names to watch

What an NBA season we’ve been treated to so far!

With the NBA Cup past us — congrats to the Knicks! — we’re inching closer to the turn of the calendar. As such, it’s about that time we seriously start considering All-Star selections. All-Star voting officially opened on Wednesday, giving us an opportunity to highlight some of the tremendous seasons taking place right now.

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In case you need the reminder, we’ll have a new All-Star format this season as the NBA attempts to breathe life into its premier showcase game on Feb. 15. We will see the introduction of a Team USA vs. Team World format, but with a bit of a twist.

There will be three teams of eight players (24 total, no positional limit) involved in a round-robin mini-tournament. Among the player pool, 12 must come from each conference.

The teams will play each other once — Team A vs. Team B, the winner facing Team C in the second game, then the loser of Team A vs Team B facing Team C in the third game — with each game consisting of a 12-minute period.

The top two teams will play each other in the championship game. If the initial three games end with each team having a 1-1 record, the tiebreaker will be the overall point differential.

(Jonathan Castro/Yahoo Sports Illustration)

Last month, I took an all-encompassing view of what the All-Star teams — and the three-team constructions — may look like. For this piece, I want to focus on the potential first-time selections. The only thing more exciting than a new All-Star format is a group of newbies entering the fray for the first time. A couple of notes before we get rollin’ and scrollin’:

While there isn’t an official games-played minimum for All-Star festivities, I personally use it as a consistent guardrail since I’m keeping tabs for award selections anyway. A 65-of-82 limit comes out to roughly 79% of games played; the league average for games played right now is about 27, meaning players would need to have appeared in at least 20 contests for me through Dec. 19. It’s why honorable mentions from last month’s piece, like Aaron Gordon (13 games) and  Stephon Castle (17…

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Author : Nekias Duncan

Publish date : 2025-12-19 20:47:00

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