Which NBA All-Stars should LeBron and Giannis draft first?
Whom should captains Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James take with their top picks in the 2019 NBA All-Star Game draft?
Giannis and LeBron will get to pick their teammates as the leading fan vote-getters in the Eastern Conference and Western Conference, respectively, under the format the NBA adopted for its All-Star Game last season. They'll choose from among the other eight starters, who were revealed Thursday night along with the captains, and then from among the 14 reserves announced next Thursday.
So who are the best picks for Antetokounmpo and James to build their teams around? Let's answer that and other key questions from Thursday's announcement.
Who should be the top picks?
As the leading vote-getter, LeBron will have the top pick in the All-Star draft for the second consecutive year. It's well-documented how much James dislikes playing center, and as a result it makes sense for him to take Philadelphia 76ers big man Joel Embiid with the top pick.
Embiid would move LeBron to forward and present a matchup problem as the only 7-footer among the starters. Last year, Embiid scored 19 points in 20 minutes in his All-Star debut, shooting 8-of-13 from the field.
If Embiid is the top pick, I'd advise Giannis to take Kevin Durant with the No. 2 selection. Durant, the MVP of the 2012 All-Star Game, has averaged 24.3 points in nine All-Star appearances -- fourth-highest among players who have played at least two games, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
Because the All-Star Game has become higher scoring over time, the three players ahead of Durant are all active, but LeBron is one of them and the other two ( Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook) were both bypassed as starters in the West.
Where was the love for Davis in fan voting?
There were at least four deserving candidates for the three starting spots in the West frontcourt this year, but media and players were in agreement that the best choices were James, Durant and Davis -- in that order. Alas, Davis finished fifth in the fan voting behind not only Paul George of the Oklahoma City Thunder but also Dallas Mavericks rookie Luka Doncic. (Doncic finished second overall in the voting, trailing only LeBron.)
Because fan voting counts for twice the weight of the other two categories and is also used as the tiebreaker, that allowed George to snag the third starting spot in the West ahead of Davis. While I picked Davis in my official media vote by virtue of his longer track record of superstar-caliber play, it's hard to really disagree with the fans. George ranks second among all NBA players in my wins above replacement player (WARP) metric, which takes into account the fact that his production on the wing would be more difficult to replace than Davis' minutes at power forward and center.
Nonetheless, it's worth wondering why Davis again lagged in fan voting. He finished third last season but was fourth in 2017, two spots behind then- Golden State Warriors center Zaza Pachulia. Davis still ended up a starter then because Pachulia finished 12th in player voting and did not receive a single vote from the media. Given that Davis was beaten out by George, it's hard to say George won because of market size, but the relatively small New Orleans Pelicans fan base may be holding back Davis' voting totals.
Who wishes we'd go back to fan voting?
Though fan voting gave George the edge over Davis, it wasn't enough for two other players -- in addition to Doncic -- who would be starters under the old format that relied exclusively on fans to pick the starting fives. Neither Derrick Rose of the Minnesota Timberwolves nor Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat got enough support from fellow players or the media to be a starter.
Remarkably, this is the second time in three years that Wade has finished in the top two of fan voting but lost a starting spot because of the new format. The same fan nostalgia for Wade to be an All-Star in his final season in the NBA did not carry over among players and media members, both of whom ranked him sixth among East backcourt options.
Rose also got broad support from players, who ranked him fourth in the West backcourt, but did not get a single vote from media members.
Did the process get the East backcourt right?
Besides the difficult choice of which three players should make up the West frontcourt, the other challenging decision for this year's starters was the second backcourt starter in the East alongside Kyrie Irving. Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards, Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers and Kemba Walker of the Charlotte Hornets were all reasonable contenders for that spot.
Ultimately, all three components of the voting process lined up behind Walker as the best candidate. He finished second in both media and player voting, and third behind Wade in the fan vote. Beal was third in player voting but fifth among the media, behind the other three contenders and Victor Oladipo of the Indiana Pacers (prior to his season-ending quadriceps tendon rupture on Wednesday night). Meanwhile, Simmons got the third-most votes from media members but dropped to fifth among players, again behind Oladipo.
I think that was the right call. All-in-one box-score stats, including WARP, generally rate Walker as the most valuable of the three players this season. (Oladipo lagged behind the group, in part because he missed 11 games due to a sore right knee in November and December.) So too does ESPN's real plus-minus. Add in the storyline of Walker starting in front of home fans at the Spectrum Center and we can feel good about his selection.
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