Those running offshore sportsbooks have to be flabbergasted that the NBA won’t televise the All-Star Game draft. It has the potential to be one of the most entertaining things in all of sports, but it also has the potential to hurt the feelings of a multi-million dollar man who is one of the 20 best at his profession in the world. These cats have egos and they must be kept intact, I guess.
But what if we were able to flip the premise ever so slightly. Instead of allowing the captains to pick their teams, we have the rest of the All-Star starters pick which captains they want to play for? Say the voting holds up from the last returns and LeBron James and Stephen Curry are the top two vote-getters. They’d stand on opposite ends of a room while eight other guys, one-by-one select a side.
Let’s move this one step further and allow guys to go in order of votes received. This would be the order in which they choose who they wanted their captains to be:
- Giannis Antetokounmpo
- Kyrie Irving
- Kevin Durant
- James Harden
- Joel Embiid
- Anthony Davis
- Draymond Green
- DeMar DeRozan
Giannis has the opportunity to set things off right off the bat. Whoever he chooses could be the clear-cut favorite or could make some things very interesting toward the end. If he chooses Curry, Steph could end up with the first three picks, leaving only one slot left for his squad with Draymond choosing second to last. Just imagine the disgust on Draymond’s face if he’s forced to play with Bron because Giannis wanted to play with the greatest shooter of all time -- and this is likely who Giannis decides to roll with because he’s the worst shooter of the bunch.
We know Kyrie is likely to play with Steph because of the way the summer worked out and the ambiguous, bizarre relationship between he and James. Durant would have an easy choice, too. It wouldn’t make sense to leave his boy hanging and join Bron in the only exhibition game that kind of matters.
James Harden, if I had to guess, would join LeBron and would create one of the most fascinating tandems in ASG history because of the complementary skill sets. Joel Embiid might be the most difficult player to predict because he’s the kind of troll who gives it to everyone. My initial hunch says he sides with Bron and Harden, but he’s shown love to Golden State in the past.
Anthony Davis likely goes opposite of where Embiid goes. Brow is criminally underappreciated when we talk about the bigs moving us into the future. He was Embiid before Embiid existed, and he’s a better version of Embiid with fewer health issues, but receives a fraction of the love because he doesn’t make jokes on social media. No matter how these two picks land, it pushes Draymond and DeRozan on LeBron’s squad.
Now let’s take a look at the two teams:
TEAM A
- James Harden
- DeMar DeRozan
- LeBron James
- Draymond Green
- Anthony Davis
TEAM B
- Stephen Curry
- Kyrie Irving
- Kevin Durant
- Giannis Antetokounmpo
- Joel Embiid
It’s honestly a lot harder to call than I initially felt when I was going through the selections. Bron’s squad is a much better defensive team with a couple of guys who can light it up in pretty much any situation. Steph’s squad has five guys who can get buckets. Giannis choosing Steph over Bron and Davis choosing to play against Embiid would make for fantastic drama (TNT knows what I’m talking about). Not to mention the Kyrie and Draymond angles and we might have a really fun All-Star Game.
