The 2024-25 NBA All-Star starters were announced on Thursday, and they were predictable selections with Stephen Curry, LeBron James and Kevin Durant — the oldest of the old guard — all getting the nod in the Western Conference.
The East was an easier call, other than the LaMelo Ball dilemma. The overall voting pool got it right by rewarding Jalen Brunson and Donovan Mitchell with the starting backcourt spots while leaving Ball, who earned the most fan votes among East guards, to fight for a reserve spot. Here are the full starting lineups, as determined by 50% fan votes and 25% each from media and current players:
Before we go any further, let’s remember that these “starter” designations are of no practical purpose given the change to the All-Star format this year, which will break the 24 All-Stars into three teams of eight (the winner of the Rising Stars game with be the fourth team) for a bracketed tournament or sorts.
This seems like a dumb idea, but the NBA is desperate to churn up any sort of competitive juice among the players to at least make the All-Star game(s) watchable. We’ll see if it works. But that’s another story. What we’re talking about is the naming of these starters as a matter of recognizing the 10 players — with the two-guard/three-frontcourt caveat, of course — who are having the best seasons.
Through that lens, the voters missed on a couple high-profile marks by naming Curry, James and Durant as starters over Anthony Edwards and Victor Wembanyama, both of whom deserved the starter distinction. As noted, two guards have to be named in each conference, so that makes the first one of these debates sort of easy:
Edwards should be in over Curry
Yes, I understand the game is in San Francisco so we all get the concept and, to a certain degree, validity of a lifetime-achievement nod. It’s not like Curry isn’t having a good season, either. He is. He’s averaging 22 points per game on 40% 3-point shooting without a single other legitimate threat to occupy the defense’s attention.
It qualifies as borderline criminal that the Warriors are leaning on Curry this heavily at this stage of his career, all to be a Play-In team at best, rather than pulling the trigger on a trade to get him the help he certainly is still capable of putting to good use.
However, Edwards is having a better season. For starters, Edwards is scoring significantly more (26.2 PPG to 22.6). Second, Edwards leads the league with 184 made 3-pointers entering play on Thursday, with Curry more than 30 behind at 151; they are virtually identical on a per-game basis, and Edwards is actually making them at a significantly higher clip (42.5% to 40.7%).
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This is to say nothing of the defensive gap between Curry and Edwards, who obviously carries more two-way weight. All the advanced metrics favor Curry, who, again, is having another great season even if the total counting stats don’t really jump out. But Edwards is hindered by many of the same restraints Curry faces with the Warriors, who actually have better spacing than the Wolves. Edwards has been forced to bomb away from 3 alongside the ill-fitting Julius Randle, whom defenses don’t respect beyond the arc.
And yet, he’s cashing them — again — at a rate higher than Curry. The Wolves have a better record than the Warriors, and Edwards has yet to miss a single game, having suited up nine more times than Curry as of Thursday. It all adds up to Edwards.
It was a tough climb for Edwards, who was fifth in fan voting, to overtake Curry, who was second to Gilgeous-Alexander among West guards in the fan vote, which accounts for 50% of the starter equation. That said, the media and players voted Curry above Edwards, too, and they got that wrong.
Edwards was third in both, so they didn’t miss the mark by much. But they missed it nonetheless. The fans are really to blame here, as they made the gap Edwards needed to clear too big, but he deserved the player and media vote as at least a nod to the fact that he’s having a better season than Curry.
Wemby was also snubbed
Nikola Jokic was a lock for one of the West’s three frontcourt spots, which left four viable candidates for the last two slots: LeBron, Anthony Davis, Durant and Wembanyama. As noted, LeBron and Durant were the two selected. They’re both having very good seasons, but not as good as Wembanyama, who has the Spurs 12 wins ahead of last year’s pace — the league’s second-best year-to-year jump behind Detroit.
LeBron, at 40 years old, was one of just two players averaging at least 23 points, nine assists and seven rebounds entering play on Thursday, with the other being Jokic, so let’s not go overboard in downplaying his worthiness.
The same goes for Durant, who is averaging north of 27 points, six rebounds and four assists on typically elite efficiency. But the slight offensive edge Durant, or LeBron for that matter, holds over Wembanyama is not nearly significant enough to cover for Wembanyama’s massive defensive edge.
On track to become the 10th player in history to block four shots per game, and just the fifth to do so while also averaging at least 20 points and 10 rebounds, Wembanyama is the runaway DPOY favorite as he has already established himself as the league’s most impactful defensive player by an appreciable margin.
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Also of note, Wembanyama has played more games than Durant (a relatively negligible 35 to 33, but still) and is putting up similar numbers on almost three fewer minutes a night. Per 36 minutes, Wembanyama logs almost identical points and assists to Durant while far clearing him in rebounds, and is also scoring and rebounding a greater clip than LeBron.
So whose place should Wemby have taken? I would say Durant, only because Phoenix has been the most disappointing team among the three involved and because James is making his 20th consecutive All-Star start; there’s no need to go breaking that streak when he’s still playing at such a high level. Also, the fans voted LeBron ahead of Durant, so Wemby had a better shot of overtaking Durant.
As for who’s to blame for Wemby’s snub, it was first and foremost the fans, who voted LeBron second and Durant third. That put Wembanyama behind the eight ball, and the players sealed his fate by voting LeBron and Durant into a second-place tie, making Wemby fourth. The media voted Wembanyama second, which was the correct call, but not enough to result in the correct outcome.
