The NBA All-Star Game starters were announced on Monday, Jan. 19, and Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards was not among them.
Edwards has played in the past three All-Star Games. He tied the Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama for the fifth spot among Western Conference players and was chosen a starter by both the players and the media, but Wembanyama won the tiebreaker because he won the fan vote, which accounted for 50%.
Edwards is fifth in the league in scoring (29.6 points per game) after notching a career-high 55 points against Wembanyama and the Spurs in a 126-123 loss on Saturday, Jan. 17.
Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Denver’s Nikola Jokic, the Los Angeles Lakers’ Luka Doncic and Wembanyama were among those announced Monday as starters — an inexact term this year — for next month’s All-Star Game at the Intuit Dome, the Los Angeles Clippers’ arena in Inglewood, Calif.
They are likely heading to the World team, which will take on two teams of U.S. players as part of yet another new format for the midseason showcase.
The NBA announced 10 starters, five from each conference. Golden State’s Stephen Curry, New York’s Jalen Brunson, Detroit’s Cade Cunningham, Philadelphia’s Tyrese Maxey and Boston’s Jaylen Brown all are presumably headed to the U.S. squads that will play in the three-team, round-robin tournament on Feb. 15 — all 12-minute mini-games, with the top two teams advancing to a 12-minute championship game.
Starters were selected through a weighted formula, with fan voting counting for 50% of a player’s ranking, the votes of a 100-member panel of broadcasters and reporters counting for 25% and voting by NBA players themselves counting for the remaining 25%.
The U.S.-vs.-World concept was talked about for years before finally becoming a reality this season. The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association unveiled the long-awaited plan earlier this season, after trying yet again to figure out the latest way to spark renewed interest in the All-Star Game.
