Preview/Predictions

2021

All-Star Weekend 2021 will be unlike any other. Originally scheduled for mid-February in Indianapolis, the midseason classic has been moved to Atlanta due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and all events are being consolidated into one night—Sunday, March 7th—with the Skills Challenge and 3-Point Contest kicking off before the big game and the Dunk Contest taking place at halftime. The Rising Stars (US vs. World) game has been cut due to time, but the NBA still announced the rosters as a way to honor the 24 first and second year standouts who were voted in by the league's assistant coaches.

Big name players like LeBron, Kawhi, and Giannis have already voiced their displeasure with there even being an All-Star game during a pandemic. It's clearly a money grab by Adam Silver and the league has been pretty hush about details as they throw all this together last minute.

Hype for All-Star Weekend is at an all time low across the NBA, but not in my house. I'm still here to give you full coverage of my favorite event of the year. We're still waiting for Team LeBron and Team Durant to draft their rosters Thursday night, but here's what I got so far:

Skills Challenge

Pregame - 5:30pm CST

In an assumed effort to keep things simple and contained, the NBA has reduced the number of participants in all events and limited it to mostly players who will already be in the All-Star game. 5 of the 6 participants in the Skills Challenge fall into that category except for...

Robert Covington?

It's hilarious how Covington is included here. He's not an All-Star this year, has never been one, and isn't even considered a household name. On top of that, he's an NBA journeyman known for his defense—not playmaking skills. So again...why is he in here?

Luka Doncic

Joining Covington from the West is arguably the most skilled player in the game today, Luka Doncic. The Slovenian is putting up big numbers this season on an underperforming Mav's team, but is coming into this weekend with a lot of moment after being voted an All-Star starter. Luka came up short in his first stab at the Skills Challenge in 2019, but is still considered a favorite for the kickoff event Sunday night.

Chris Paul

Rounding out the West is the craftiest vet in the league. Paul has been leading the 2nd ranked Suns in their resurgent year and doesn't appear to be slowing down in his 16th season. You'd think CP3 already has a couple Skills titles under his belt but he's shockingly 0-for-4 in this event. He even airballed the layup in 2011.

Nikola Vucevic

Coming out of the East is Orlando's big man who is probably the most underrated star in the league. Vooch was just named to his second consecutive All-Star game and has been carrying my fantasy team this year with averages of 24.5 ppg 11.7 rpg and 3.7 apg. A guy will his skillset is sure to make a splash and I wouldn't be surprised to see him go up against his Baltic Brother, Luka, in the finals.

Domantas Sabonis

Indy's young stud is the quintessential Euro-big who's built for this contest. Sabonis has the lineage to back up his talents and could easily come out victorious if he keeps his composure Sunday night.

Julius Randle

King Julius is my pick since he's having a monster season for a historically bad Knicks team that just celebrated being a game above .500. Going with Randle is purely a gut feeling so please don't @ me if he loses and please expected to get @'d when he wins.

My pick to win: Julius Randle

3-Point Contest

Pregame - 6:00pm CST

The 3-Point contest is definitely the most star-studded event this year besides the All-Star game itself. All these guys are shooting at a high clip from long range this season and deserve their spots to showcase their strokes.

Here's a little secret about my blog—for all other events I use my expert opinion and analysis when seeding players, but the 3-Point Contest seeds are completely objective. I take each player's average 3's made per game and multiply it by their 3-point shooting percentage. So this year's participants are seeded as follows:

1. Steph Curry (1 point) — 4.8 x .413 = 1.9824

2. Zach LaVine (1 point) — 3.5 x .433 = 1.5155

3. Don Mitchell (2 points) - 3.3 x .380 = 1.254

4. Jayson Tatum (2 points) — 2.7 x .368 = 0.9936

5. Jaylen Brown (3 points) — 2.3 x .385 = 0.8855

6. *Devin Booker (3 points) — 2.1 x .367 = 0.7707

I'm surprised that Booker, the former champ from 2018, is last but the numbers don't lie. Voters can factor in clutch factor and whatnot, but I have to stick to my system. Curry is the clear favorite, but my heart is with the other 1 seed—my guy Zach LaVine from Chicago. LaVine finally made his first All-Star team this year and had been on an absolute tear since February as he looks to prove all his doubters wrong. He'd be the first player to hoist both the dunk and 3-point contest trophies.

My pick to win: Zach LaVine

*UPDATE*—Devin Booker is injured and will be replaced by Mike Conley. Utah's veteran point guard is averaging 2.8 triples per game shooting .422 from deep.

Dunk Contest

Halftime

I'm just gonna get ahead of this and say this is the weakest dunker pool of all time. This is proof that most players do not want to travel during a pandemic and we should not have expected Zion to want to stop in the middle of his first All-Star game to dunk a couple times in front of no fans. Casual basketball fans will not know who any of these guys are so let me give you some insight:

Obi Toppin

Obi-Wan is the admittedly the only player of these 3 that I know much about. The rookie out of Dayton is playing for his hometown New York Knicks and got everyone emotional when he was selected 8th overall on draft night. Toppin is someone I figured was going to be in this year's contest because he was known for his dunks in college and clearly wants to be here and put on a show. The 6'9" forward's appearance and demeanor reminds me a lot of a former Knick who also rocked #1 on his chest—Amar'e Stoudemire. Both have broad, hunched shoulders and throw it down with a lot of power. Amar'e got creative in this contest when he was the runner-up in 2005 and I see Obi bringing a similar flair when he steps on the court at halftime.

Anfernee Simons

Portland's third year guard is the tiny guy with bounce that judges are always suckers for. He doesn't have many NBA dunks on tape but his YouTube mix of pregame and practice dunks is actually impressive. Plus his parents named him Anfernee after Penny Hardaway, so hats off for having cool parents, ya know? He's the type of guy who can win this thing if the other guys miss on their first attempts.

Cassius Stanley

This guy is not a factor when it comes to actual basketball, but in a dunk contest he can do some damage. Stanley recorded a 46.5" vertical jump at Duke, which is the highest out of anyone in the program—including Zion. If he gets his head above the rim every time he can easily take home the crown Sunday night. Out of all three participants, he has the most potential to string it all together and has been pulling off crazy dunks since THE 9TH GRADE (see below).

Will these players have good dunks? Sure. Will they be anything we haven't seen before? Probably not. I'm excited to see what happens, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Expect the format with 3 dunkers to be quick and underwhelming, but expect at least a couple impressive dunks from Stanley the Manly.

My pick to win: Cassius Stanley

70th Annual All-Star Game

7:00pm CST

LeBron and KD were the leading vote getters of their respective conferences, so they're the captains this year. This is the fourth time LeBron has been voted a captain and he's 3-0 since the All-Star game has adopted this format. Durant will NOT be playing on Sunday due to injury, but still serves as the GM/leader for the squad he drafted.

Team LeBron has been dominant the past three years because James has objectively drafted the best players on the board. In the past, former captains Steph Curry and Giannis Antetokounmpo would prioritize their teammates over more elite players (i.e. Giannis taking Khris Middleton first over the rest of the reserves) but this year that strategy works to Durant's advantage since his teammates are the 2014 All-Star MVP, Kyrie Irving and the 2018 NBA MVP, James Harden. Here's how the draft went down:

LeBron's starters have the edge and it's through no fault of KD. Because of his injury, Durant had 5 picks in the first round instead 4. Leading vote getter, LeBron, had the first pick of the snake draft, so Durant was automatically stuck with the last two starters—which turned out to be Jayson Tatum and Bradley Beal. Tatum and Beal are both having great years, but they're definitely a step behind the rest in the starter pool.

Both benches look pretty even. LeBron was smart to grab his boy, Chris Paul, who took over last year's All-Star game in the final period and Durant has a dog in Devin Booker* who will likely trade buckets with his Phoenix teammate in crunch time. I also love that Durant went with young guys like LaVine and Zion. Those two high-flyers will be highly entertaining—although Zion's toe injury that kept him out of Thursday night's game does worry me a bit.

The biggest story of the draft was the lack of respect for the Utah Jazz. The team from Salt Lake has the best record in the league going into Sunday and has two All-Stars in Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, yet both players fell to the last two picks as neither LeBron nor KD seemed interested in takeing them. LeBron even joked, "Just like in video games growing up, we never played with Utah. Even as great as Karl Malone and John Stockton [were], we never picked those guys in video games. Never."

Mitchell and Gobert aren't exactly Stockton and Malone, but a first place record has to count for something, right? Donovan Mitchell especially seems like the type of guy to take offense to comments like that, so I'm looking for him to play with a huge chip on his shoulder this Sunday.

In terms of who I think will win, I have to lean Team LeBron. The three teams he's captained have all been undefeated and his kryptonite, KD, isn't suiting up to stop him. I think Kawhi can do a good job of containing Bron, but with a backcourt of Steph, Luka, and Dame, I don't see how Durant's guards can douse all those flames.

I'm picking Luka Doncic as my MVP because I expect this one to go down to the wire and Doncic is quickly building his legacy as a closer. Curry tends to be quiet in All-Star games and Lillard won't have starter's minutes, so the ball will be in Luka's hands on the last possession when the target score is hit. Will we see some Luka Magic? I sure hope so.

My pick to win: Team LeBron

My pick for MVP: Luka Doncic

*UPDATE*—Devin Booker is injured and will be replaced by first time All-Star Mike Conley of the Utah Jazz.

Those are my picks, now please tell me yours! Go to the Vote page to select who you think will win. Voting will get you entered into the People's Picks page where winners receive prizes. What are the prizes you ask? Win to find out!

You can also join the discussion by explaining your picks below (which is way more fun). I love hearing other people's takes and expanding this blog with your analysis. Let the comments begin!