This upcoming 2018, the NBA All Star Game will be quite different than the past All Star games. All-Star weekend will be taking place February sixteenth until the eighteenth. This annual special event will be taking place on the lights and stages of L.A., at the Staples Center. Rather than the typical Eastern vs Western Conference matchup, we now have team captains: LeBron James and Stephen Curry. Each player will CHOOSE which player they want, regardless of the conference the player is in. According to ESPN.com, the chosen players for “Team Curry” are: Giannis Antetokounmpo, DeMar DeRozan, Joel Embiid, James Harden, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, Al Horford, Damian Lillard, Kyle Lowry, Klay Thompson and Karl-Anthony Towns. For “Team LeBron,” the players include: Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, LaMarcus Aldridge, Bradley Beal, Victor Oladipo, Kristaps Porzingis, Russell Westbrook, Paul George, Andre Drummond, and Goran Dragic.

Unfortunately, players like John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and Kevin Love were injured during the offseason. Originally, they were part of the All Star team for both Curry and Lebron. They were later replaced by Paul George, Goran Dragic, and Andre Drummond (see list of players above). There have been many rumors and speculations that Kyrie’s departure from Cleveland will ultimately lead to Lebron not recruiting him into his team. However, that is not the case. James decided to recruit Kyrie onto his team. According to ABC news in an interview, James talked about choosing Kyrie Irving: “To be able to team up back with Kyrie, it’s always special… [and] for us to have another weekend to bring back all the memories that we had when we were together. So Kyrie was available in the draft board, he’s one of the best point guards.”

In addition to the All Star game, there is always the annual All-Star Dunk contest and three-point contests. According to ESPN.com, the players who will be participating in the Dunk contest are: Victor Oladipo, Larry Nance Jr., Dennis Smith Jr., and Donovan Mitchell. For the Three-point contest, the players chosen are: Paul George, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, and Klay Thompson, just to name a few. Both the Dunk contest and Three-point contests will be taking place on Saturday, whereas the actual All-Star game will be taking place on Sunday.

With All-Star weekend just around the corner, fans will be looking forward to seeing the players perform and play against each other under the spotlights and stage of Los Angeles. Moreover, the trade deadline is just a few days away (February eighth) and as we all know, the NBA is going to be very busy and chaotic the next few days trying to hurry up trades and get deals done. With all that being said, we all look forward to seeing what will happen in the coming weeks.