NBA ALL STAR WEEKEND IS A-COMING

The All Star weekend is approaching little by little and as usual the format of the all star game changes every other year or so.

The All Star voting was released last week, with 9 out of the 20 players in the western conference coming from the GS Warriors and the Lakers even though they are in the 8th and 13th seed respectively. The only reason being that fan voting has taken over the all star break, as millions of fans vote for the players they prefer over their performance in the regular season.

So the way the all star draft will happen will be on game day instead of prior to the all star weekend. Additionally, the starters are all from the same conference, as they earned the spot to start the game, while the reserves will be drafted. The starters for each conference came out last night, and needless to say there are some disappointments.

Eastern conference:

• Kyrie Irving
• Donovan Mitchell
• Jayson Tatum
• Kevin Durant
• Giannis Antetokounmpo (c)

Western conference:

• Steph Curry
• Luka Doncic
• LeBron James (c)
• Zion Williamson
• Nikola Jokic 

Of course these starters make sense for the value of the players, not in regards to how their team is performing, but how their performances individually.

Some players got snubbed from the all star break all together, like De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis who are currently having career seasons and did not make the voting due to the lack of knowledge form the voters, they are not known worldwide.

Other players did get voted as all stars, but got snubbed when it came to the starters. For example, SGA (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) is currently having a better season than Steph Curry, yet he was not chosen to start the game. In the East, Jalen Brunson would have been a good pick along with Kyrie or Mitchell, but unfortunately the ladder got chosen. Joel Embiid, who is having another career season, currently number 1 in scoring average was not chosen to start the all star game. KD is currently injured so Joel will have a chance to start, but on paper the media made up its mind and collectively decided that Embiid is worth less than KD.

Overall, the All star weekend has been broken for a while, with the dunk contest recording an all time low viewership last year, as it continuously decreases every season, along with the three point contest which has been seen over and over each year. The All star game was one of the only events that people actually looked forward to, and it still is, but the amount of power the fans have on the all stars has gone out of hand.

This year, I am personally excited for the USA vs Rest of the World game, as Luka, Jokic, Embiid and Giannis will take on the best US players. For a while now international players have seen their foot in the NBA impo