Basketball’s biggest celebration is upon us – the NBA All-Star Weekend. Legendary matches and competitions will take place this weekend (February 17-19). Who will perform in the NBA’s Legendary All-Star Weekend?
NBA All-Star Weekend. What is it?
The NBA All-Star Weekend is an event that celebrates basketball and its greatest legends and emerging talents. The event takes place every year in the middle of the season on a weekend in February. As part of the competition, basketball players play friendly matches and take part in spectacular dunk, three-point and skill competitions, in which they jump, for example, over cars to make the games more difficult and attractive. The main event of the weekend is the All-Star Game between the best players in the Eastern Conference and the best players in the Western Conference.
NBA All-Star Celebrity Game and Rising Star Game
The NBA All-Star Celebrity Game and Rising Star Game take place on the first day of NBA All-Star Weekend. This year it is Friday, February 17. The Celebrity Game is an exhibition game featuring retired NBA players, actors, musicians, and athletes from other sports. The Rising Star Game is a mini-tournament for emerging NBA stars who are in their first or second season in the NBA.
This year, the Polish basketball player Jeremy Sochan will take part in the Rising Star Game tournament. This is the first time that a Pole plays during the weekend of NBA stars. Sochan is a representative of Poland and has been playing in the NBA since 2022 for the San Antonio Spurs. In addition to Sochan, the tournament of rising stars will be attended by players such as AJ Griffin, Paolo Banchero, Jalen Green, Josh Giddey and Evan Mobley. In Celebrity Game we will see stars such as 21 Savage, Frances Tiafoe, Simu Liu, Calvin Johnson and Guillermo Rodriguez.
Contests
The second day of the NBA All-Star Weekend is marked by various competitions that showcase the skills of active players. Basketball players take part in several competitions. In the Skill Challenge, they will be put to the test of their general skills by completing an obstacle course as quickly as possible. Skills such as dribbling, passing and throwing will be tested here. In the three-point competition, three-point specialists will shoot from five different positions from behind the three-point line. At the end there will be a dunk competition where the best dunkers will try to dunk from various spectacular situations or after overcoming exceptional obstacles.
All-Star Game
The All-Star Game is what everyone is waiting for. The best basketball players in the league are competing in it. The All-Star Game closes the NBA All-Star Weekend. The format of this match has changed several times in recent years. Now team captains select players for their team for a given shift. Last year it was a few days before the matches. This year, LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo (captains of the East and West teams) will select the players half an hour before the game. The match will follow the format introduced in 2020. For the first three quarters, the match is traditionally played for 12 minutes each, but for each won quarter, the team wins money that flows into the foundation of their choice. The last quarter takes place without a time limit. Teams play to a score 24 points higher than the winning team at the end of the third quarter.
Skład drużyn na Mecz Gwiazd:
| Eastern Conference players | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Payer | Team | Which time in the All-Star Game? | |
| Main players | |||
| Kyrie Irving | Dallas Mavericks | 8 | |
| Donovan Mitchell | Cleveland Cavaliers | 4 | |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | Milwaukee Bucks | 7 | |
| Joel Embiid | Philadelphia 76ers | 6 | |
| Jayson Tatum | Boston Celtics | 4 | |
| Reserve players | |||
| Jaylen Brown | Boston Celtics | 2 | |
| DeMar DeRozan | Chicago Bulls | 6 | |
| Tyrese Haliburton | Indiana Pacers | 1 | |
| Jrue Holiday | Milwaukee Bucks | 2 | |
| Julius Randle | New York Knicks | 2 | |
| Bam Adebayo | Miami Heat | 2 | |
| Pascal Siakam | Toronto Raptors | 2 |
| Western Conference players | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Team | Which time in the All-Star Game? | |
| Main players | |||
| Ja Morant | Memphis Grizzlies | 2 | |
| Luka Dončić | Dallas Mavericks | 4 | |
| Nikola Jokić | Denver Nuggets | 5 | |
| LeBron James | Los Angeles Lakers | 19 | |
| Lauri Markkanen | Utah Jazz | 1 | |
| Reserve players | |||
| Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | Oklahoma City Thunder | 1 | |
| Damian Lillard | Portland Trail Blazers | 7 | |
| Paul George | Los Angeles Clippers | 8 | |
| Jaren Jackson Jr. | Memphis Grizzlies | 1 | |
| Domantas Sabonis | Sacramento Kings | 3 | |
| Anthony Edwards | Minnesota Timberwolves | 1 | |
| De’Aaron Fox | Sacramento Kings | 1 |
