The 2018 NBA All-Star starters and captains will be revealed on Thursday night during TNT’s NBA Tipoff coverage, as Ernie, Shaq, Chuck and Kenny will break down the first 10 All-Stars as selected by the fans, players and media.
With the starters, there’s not a ton of intrigue, as very few surprise players end up with All-Star starting roles. The big twist this year is that teams won’t be broken into the traditional East vs. West alignments, but instead will be picked by captains, with the players receiving the most votes in each conference being the captains.
The first pick will go to the player with the most overall votes, and while Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are neck-and-neck for the top spot in the West, LeBron James has run away with the East’s top spot and is expected to be the top overall vote-getter.
LeBron will be the NBA’s All-Star vote leader when final results are announced tonight, I’m told. I guess that would mean he gets first pick in draft
— Joe Vardon (@joevardon) January 18, 2018
If LeBron has the top pick, that means everyone but either Curry or Durant will be on the board for him to take. So, who should get that honor? The All-Star Draft will, sadly, not be televised this year (hopefully it will be in the future), but we can speculate and it probably won’t be hard to figure out who was his top pick. We asked our staff who they think James should pick first overall, starting with an old teammate.
Kyrie Irving:
When Kyrie Irving requested a trade away from LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, the sentiment was clear: Kyrie wanted to go it alone and win a championship as the centerpiece of a franchise. And what better way to troll the guy that left than making him play basketball with you again in an exhibition game in your (maybe) future home arena? The pettiness would be unprecedented in All-Star Game history. Kyrie actually had a chance to not play with someone from his conference for the first time and LeBron dragged him back to his own personal hell once more. I’m excited just writing about the possibility, even if he’ll probably pick someone who better understands the scientific method like, say, every other NBA All-Star in the history of the league. — Ryan Nagelhout
Kevin Durant (or Steph Curry):
This is the one that makes the most sense from a basketball perspective, especially if it’s Steph on the board, and is also exceptionally petty. Based on the last round of voting results made public, Curry will be the captain and LeBron should do everything in his power to break up the Warriors in the draft and make them play against each other. Most would expect him to take whatever members of his Banana Boat crew early and maybe he will, but it would be way funnier if he took this opportunity to mess with the Golden State guys.
Beyond the pettiness of it all, LeBron paired with either Durant or Curry would be ridiculous. Curry seems like the better fit if you really want to nitpick, but any combination of those three is silly, so let’s make sure we see one of the two that isn’t on the court together in real life. This one is easy to explain for LeBron, too, in terms of selecting someone over Kyrie if he wants to avoid that reunion this February, and hope Irving gets scooped up by the other team. — Robby Kalland
Joel Embiid:
LeBron should just cut out all this nonsense and select the internet’s all-time No. 1 draft pick, Joel Embiid. It’s not like the guy isn’t already an All-Star and a top-tier player in the NBA, but he’s also pretty much everyone in the world’s favorite player. If LeBron takes Embiid at No. 1 he would win the fan vote yet again … the fan vote … of our hearts. Plus, Bron would get to make layup “trust the process” jokes in response to questions about his pick. Everybody wins. And hey, maybe this selection would have the added benefit of impressing Rihanna. — Bill Hanstock
James Harden:
The All-Star Game is meant to be, above everything else, fun. I, for one, do not care about which side wins or loses, I do not care who wins the MVP, I do not care about anything in this game that applies to more serious games. What I want is highlights. I want fun, silly moments that lead to basketball players and fans having a ton of fun and us getting to produce content. I want things like the Western Conference bench going crazy after a Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook alley-pop, or Steph Curry laying down to avoid getting yammed on by Giannis Antetokounmpo.
For that reason, LeBron James has to pick a fun of a basketball player as possible. Not only that, but he has to pick a player with whom he’d have a ton of fun. That player is James Harden. It is fun when LeBron plays at a million miles an hour. That is Harden’s default setting. Putting the two of them together would mean an endless supply of lobs, dunks, and crazy passes that would make me, as a basketball fan, smile and have fun. This, ultimately, is what the All-Star Game is all about. — Bill DiFilippo
