Nikola Jokic And Giannis Antetokounmpo Led The 2022 All-NBA First Team, While Joel Embiid Received Second Team Honors

For months, a great deal of attention has been devoted to NBA award discourse for the 2021-22 season, headlined by an incredibly interesting MVP race eventually won by Nikola Jokic. On Tuesday, the league announced the last of its major individual honors with the reveal of the 2021-22 All-NBA teams by TNT’s Inside The NBA panel.

The First Team unsurprisingly includes Jokic, and he is joined by Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, Devin Booker, and Jayson Tatum. Notably, Joel Embiid, who finished No. 2 in MVP voting, did not make First Team despite forward eligibility.

Embiid did make the Second Team, anchoring an intriguing quintet. He is flanked by Stephen Curry, Ja Morant, DeMar DeRozan, and Kevin Durant.

Finally, the Third Team is headlined by LeBron James, who made his 18th All-NBA team. Joining him is Chris Paul, Trae Young, Pascal Siakam, and Karl-Anthony Towns.

Beyond the honor of being selected, this was a particularly fruitful night for Trae Young from a monetary standpoint. Before the 2021-22 season began, he inked a five-year max extension with the Hawks, locking in a projected salary of $176.9 million when accounting for the NBA’s projected $122 million salary cap for 2022-23. However, Young’s deal jumps to the “supermax” with his All-NBA selection, and his new projection is a five-year deal worth more than $212 million, earning an extra $35.4 million in total and more than $6 million in 2022-23.

The full voting breakdown is here, with Antetokounmpo as the only unanimous choice for the First Team. Despite his MVP win, Jokic was left off the First Team, in favor of Embiid, on a number of ballots. Down the ballot, one of the closest races was between James and DeRozan for the second forward spot on the Second Team.