All-Star Game: All you need to know about Sunday’s event
The fans in Salt Lake City used to serenade Donovan Mitchell with “MVP” chants when he played for the Utah Jazz, a sign of their appreciation and respect.
He plays for Cleveland now. But he wouldn’t mind hearing those cries again Sunday.
The 72nd NBA All-Star Game is Sunday night with almost all of the league’s biggest names set to take part in Utah.
Captains LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks will pick their teams before the game, leaving Team LeBron coach Michael Malone of the Denver Nuggets and Team Giannis coach Joe Mazzulla of the Boston Celtics about five minutes to come up with an actual game plan.
“It never gets old,” Antetokounmpo said Saturday. “Every day, every time I step to my locker and I see my jersey with my name and I’m around all these great players, which are the best players in the world, it’s always a great feeling. I never take it for granted. God has blessed me enough to be seven times an All-Star so far, and this might be my last one, so I try to enjoy to the fullest and appreciate every moment with the best players in the world.”
And most of the best are indeed in Salt Lake City.
There’s James, who just passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to become the NBA’s leading scorer. There’s Dallas’ Luka Doncic and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, currently No. 1 and No. 2 in the NBA scoring race, both of
them just over 33 points per game. Antetokounmpo and James also are averaging at least 30 points, as are Portland’s Damian Lillard, Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Boston’s
Jayson Tatum.
“It’s always great just being out here with these guys, honestly,” DeMar DeRozan of the Chicago Bulls said. “I look forward to just being able to compete. You know, we go against all these guys all season, so just to kind of detach and play with these guys is definitely an honor.”
James will be honored at halftime with a ceremony to celebrate his passing Abdul-Jabbar for the scoring record.
“I think he’s probably going to slow down whenever he wants to slow down,” Toronto All-Star forward Pascal Siakam said. “It feels like he can play forever. It looks like it.”
There’s never any real defense in these games until the fourth quarter, when players get serious, and there inevitably will be a bunch of them scoring a bunch of points. After all, that’s been a trend this
season: 20 times a player has scored 50 points in a game, a list topped by Mitchell scoring 71 for the Cavaliers against Chicago on Jan. 2.
He isn’t flat-out going for the MVP, but acknowledged that he’s thought about it.
“That would be nice,” Mitchell said. “I’m not going to try and shoot every shot, but close to every shot. Just have fun. That’s the biggest thing is kind of going into these spaces and really appreciating the moment. It’d be great to win MVP. I’ve had a lot of fullcircle moments this year. That would be another one.”