NBA

72nd Annual All-Star Game reserves are to be announced tonight on TNT (7pm ET)

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Antonio Kozlow
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Antonio Kozlow Sports Editor

Antonio is a life long sports enthusiast and professional journalist, who shares an obssesive urge to find and dig up the most interesting facts to guide gamblers towards more exciting, yet safe bets. In his own words, ''you can never really know enough about the things you love''.

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Sports Editor

Updated02 Feb 2023

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One of the last announcements towards the 72nd Annual All-Star Game to be held this month in Salt Lake City, Utah, will be made public tonight, as we will find out who are the 14 players going to each conference’s bench. 

Traditionally chosen by the 30 coaches of the NBA, they will select seven players to play for Team LeBron in the West, as well as seven reserves for Team Giannis side from the East. The athletes are picked out by position, as each squad needs two guards, three frontcourt players and two ‘wild cards’ at any position in their respective roster.

Last Thursday, January 26th, LeBron James was declared the captain of his team as voted by the fans. This means the King’s 19th All-Star selection, overcoming late-great Kobe Bryant and tying legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. As for the Eastern Conference, fans voted for Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo as their team’s leader.

Next to the Lakers star will be Serbian giant Nikola Jokić, Pelicans’ 22-year-old Zion Williamson, Luka Dončić from the Dallas Mavericks, and Stephen Curry, one of the greatest players alive. In Antetokoumpo’s starting lineup will be veteran star Kevin Durant, Celtic’s foward Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell from the Cleveland Cavaliers, and controversial talent Kyrie Irving from Brooklyn.

Are your predictions ready for tonight?

Here at Basketball Insiders, we prepared two special reports on our predictions over who should be selected for each conference’s bench. Some of them were easy picks, but in general we studied many player’s profiles and dug up their stats to prove why they deserve an All-Star selection.

In the West, Ja Morant was probably the easiest pick. The thing is, the Grizzlies star was competing for the guard position against two superstars of the game such as Luka Dončić and Stephen Curry. Nevertheless, Morant’s stats are insane! The Memphis player is averaging 24.7 points, 5.8 rebounds, 8.3 assists and one steal per game this campaign.

Here are our nominees for the seven players who should sit bench in the Western Conference.

On the other hand, no one can wrap their head around why Joel Embiid wasn’t chosen to be an All-Star starter. As many conspiracy theories run through our heads, let’s just keep to the facts. The French big man scored 47 points last week against Jokić’s Denver Nuggets and is now No.2 in the current Kia MVP Ladder, leading Philadelphia to eight victories in their last nine NBA matches.

These are our predictions for the Eastern Conference’s reserves.

Watch ESPN’s panel of experts in Inside the NBA debate over who should be picked for the All-Star Game reserves:

For the first time ever, this year the NBA All-Star Draft will take place just minutes before the game. The two team captains will draft the team rosters for each conference from the pool of players voted as starters and reserves. The Draft will start at 7:30 pm ET on Sunday, February 19th.