My 2023-24 NBA Western Conference All-Star starters
The 2023-24 NBA All-Star game is under a month away, and with the fan voting period closing, we’ve got a reasonable idea as to who might start the game, due to be held in Indianapolis, Ind., on Feb. 18th.
The fan vote closing off has prompted me to put forward my All-Star (imaginary) ballot. Here’s my Eastern Conference starters, released Saturday. Today we’re looking to the West.
A reminder that the All-Star starters are comprised of a pair of backcourt players and three frontcourt players.
Let’s go build an All-Star team!
Eastern Conference All-Star Starters:
B: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – Oklahoma City Thunder (2nd appearance, if selected)
B: Luka Doncic – Dallas Mavericks (5th appearance)
F: Kawhi Leonard – Los Angeles Lakers (6th appearance)
F: Anthony Davis – Los Angeles Lakers (9th appearance)
F: Nikola Jokic – Denver Nuggets (6th appearance)
Under the old guard/forward/centre alignment, Anthony Davis isn’t a starter on this All-Star team, not with Nikola Jokic existing. On this team, though, he earns his starting spot thanks to his stellar defense. I recently posted my leaders for the end-of-season NBA awards with Davis sitting a narrow 2nd behind Rudy Gobert for the Defensive Player of the Year award.
Davis is holding opponents to 50.7 percent shooting at the rim, a remarkable figure when considering he has Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell defending at the point of attack, and his 2.5 blocks a game are his best in Lakers colours. At the other end of the floor, he’s putting up 25 points per contest, and that doesn’t include his 40-point explosion (alongside 20 boards, five assists and four blocks) in the In-Season Tournament final.
For his part, Jokic is doing just about whatever he wants on the basketball court. An excerpt from my midseason awards piece:
He is the closest thing we have to Wilt Chamberlain – not stylistically, clearly – in that Jokic will dominate a game in precisely whatever way he feels he wants to on that night. If he wants to be an old-fashioned bruiser, he’ll go for 39 points and 11 boards without launching a three, as he did against San Antonio in late November. You want him to dissect you purely by moving the ball? How about 16 assists but only three shot attempts against the Pistons last week? Want him to reign fire from deep? I give you a three-game span prior to Christmas where he shot at a 60 percent clip from beyond the arc.
At this point, the big Serbian is basically taking the piss out of the sport.
Just whisper it, but Kawhi Leonard is looking like his old self. Whilst his numbers are fine – they’re almost a perfect replica of his 2022-23 season – it’s the eye test that lifts Leonard. After a less-than-successful feeling-out period, Leonard and his Clippers have fully embraced the James Harden experience. Leonard has, at age 32, re-discovered the spot up 3-ball and is connecting at 44.1 percent from deep overall–by far a career-high.
His relative lack of exertion on offense provides a two-fold benefit: defense and availability. Leonard’s back to his swallow-you-whole menacing best on defense. For the first time in about 5 seasons, teams are game-planning around not dribbling the ball in his vicinity. Also, Leonard has only missed four games – all in a row – from 40. If he misses another four for the rest of the season, he’ll match his career-high in appearances.
Doncic is an All-Star shoo-in … again. The Slovenian is playing career-best basketball this season … again He’s posting career highs in points, assists, steals, blocks and made threes, whilst doing it at a career-high 61.3 percent true shooting. His continued ascendancy comes as many of the West’s guard competition has thinned out.
Stephen Curry has slipped just a little as age and the diminishing ability of his team takes a toll; Damian Lillard is in the East; Devin Booker has struggled with injury; Ja Morant has (snippety, snip, snip, snip…you can’t say that! – Vendetta legal team).
That said, this Doncic season is arguably better than any of those players, peak Curry aside, have ever put forward.
Gilgeous-Alexander is so much fun! His mixture of audaciousness and elasticity mixed with the intelligence of a 15-year veteran is a delight to watch. Last season, he became just the 7th player in league history – and the youngest – to average over 31 points per game with a true-shooting percentage greater than 62 percent.
So far this season, he’s the 2nd youngest to do it! Shai’s augmented his herky-jerky driving game with some aggressive blow-bys and the best post-game for a genuine guard since Kobe’s MJ tribute act. He’s still getting it done at the defensive end of the court, too. SGA leads the league in both steals and deflections and is 5th amongst guards with at least 250 shots defended in defensive field goal percentage. He’s staking his claim as the best two-way player in the NBA.
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