The 2023 NBA All Star Game Starters & Reserves

The 2023 NBA All-Star Game started off with both LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo selecting their team in a “pickup” style up on stage. It was quite cringy and the jokes back-and-forth between the TNT crew and players were, in my opinion, the furthest thing from entertaining. I’m also pretty sure Charles Barkley was drunk.

I’m personally not a fan of the pickup style when establishing teams because it makes you look bad, pending you’re picked last or near the bottom of the pack. You can tell they attempted to counter this by giving each captain time to talk each player up prior to selecting them, as a way to make the viewer feel as though their place selected was just part of the script.

They began by selecting the Reserves, then moving on to the Starters. There must of been some talk about who they were selecting before the show because LeBron was surprised to see Giannis didn’t keep his word and pick who we’re to assume is Jrue Holiday, but started off by selecting Damian Lillard instead. I’m assuming Giannis knew Holiday would still be available after the first round of picks, so why not pull a fast one and get the winner of the 2023 Three Point Contest on your team.

Team LeBron

Reserves

Anthony Edwards

Jaylen Brown

Paul George

Tyrese Haliburton

Julius Randle

De’Aaron Fox

Jaren Jackson Jr

Starters

Joel Embiid

Kyrie Irving

Luka Dončić

Nikola Jokić

Team Giannis

Reserves

Damian Lillard

Jrue Holiday

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

DeMar DeRozen

Pascal Siakim

Bam Adebayo

Damantas Sabonis

Starters

Jayson Tatum

Ja Morant

Donovan Mitchell

Lauri Markkanen