Nick Crain | 2/16/23

NBA All-Star Weekend is upon us, as the best basketball players in the world head to Salt Lake City. The premier event of the weekend is Sunday night’s NBA All-Star Game, which features 24 of the top players around the league as voted on by fans, athletes, the media and coaches. For the first time, the NBA All-Star Draft will actually take place on the day of the game, and those selections will be aired just before tip-off. In past years, the teams were selected by captains well before the event, This year, the two team captains are once again LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo, who each led voting for their respective conferences. The captains take turns drafting from the pool of 22 players voted into the All-Star field, and conference doesn’t matter. Team LeBron will have first pick since James was the overall leading vote-getter in the All-Star balloting process. Both James and Antetokounmpo will have to be strategic in how they pick their respective teams, especially for the pool of starters. They’ll want to make sure the team they select will have synergy and mesh well enough to pull off a victory.

Eastern Conference starters

• Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)
• Kevin Durant (Brooklyn Nets) ^
• Joel Embiid (Philadelphia 76ers) ~
• Jayson Tatum (Boston Celtics)
• Donovan Mitchell (Cleveland Cavaliers)
• Kyrie Irving (Brooklyn Nets)

Western Conference starters

• LeBron James (Los Angeles Lakers)
• Nikola Jokic (Denver Nuggets)
• Lauri Markkanen (Utah Jazz)~
• Ja Morant (Memphis Grizzlies)~
• Zion Williamson (New Orleans Pelicans) ^
• Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors) ^
• Luka Doncic (Dallas Mavericks)

^ = Injured, will not play ~ = Starter replacement

With that in mind, who should James and Antetokounmpo use their first pick on? Using ProFitX models, we were quickly able to predict which player would be the best fit alongside each of them as a top option. For James, the best option from a synergy standpoint seems to be Jayson Tatum. They would form a jumbo point forward duo that can do nearly anything on the court. This type of selection with his first pick would also allow James a ton of flexibility the rest of the draft with how versatile this pairing would be. On the other hand, Antetokounmpo’s fit modeling would suggest that taking a center with his first pick would be the best bet, most notably Nikola Jokic. This All-Star class is loaded with talent at the guard position, so nailing down what would be the most lethal possible frontcourt pairing to kick off Antetokounmpo’s draft would be huge. It will be fascinating to see how these two roters unfold during the draft Regardless of the outcome, this should be a high flying, fun event for fans across the world.