NBA All-Star voting: Picking 12 players most deserving of West roster spots, with LeBron James and AD on team

Getty Images

Yesterday, we selected All-Stars from the Eastern Conference up to this point in the season. The process was relatively straightforward because the conference is relatively straightforward. There are a few very good teams, and most of the conference's talent is concentrated on those teams. If you really wanted to, you could probably form a credible All-Star team using only players from the Celtics, Cavaliers, Knicks and Bucks.

Good luck doing that with the West. Not a single team has two guaranteed locks if you throw out the reality of the voting process. There are teams outside of the top-10 with multiple viable candidates. There are teams, plural, at the top of the conference that won't have any selections at all. This conference, as is so often the case when playoff time rolls around, is a bloodbath.

Below are my 12 All-Star selections for the Western Conference as of today. The goal here will essentially be to pick the 12 players I expect to be the most deserving when February rolls around, regardless of anticipated voting results. Injuries will count, but fortunately the West has been fairly straightforward on that front thus far. We're keeping the same roster structure: two guards and three front court players in the starting lineup, the same format for the first five bench slots, and then two wild card slots that can go to anyone. So, without further ado, here are my 12 current Western Conference All-Stars.

StartersG: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, ThunderG: Luka Doncic, MavericksFC: Kevin Durant, SunsFC: Anthony Davis, LakersFC: Nikola Jokic, Nuggets

Do we really need to state Nikola Jokic's case? Fine, we'll do it in a sentence. He ranks second in the NBA in points, rebounds and assists. One down, four to go.

The guards were easy picks. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Doncic rank second and third in the Western Conference in scoring, respectively. Neither is doing so as efficiently as they did a season ago, but Doncic glides to a starting spot as one of the Western Conference's preeminent playmakers and rebounders while Gilgeous-Alexander remains the same turnover-generating terror on defense he was a year ago. 

Every other notable guard has some notable flaw in his candidacy. Anthony Edwards hasn't grown as a playmaker, and Minnesota's offense is suffering because of Mike Conley's decline. Devin Booker isn't shooting especially well. Kyrie Irving's usage, in part because he plays with Doncic, is relatively low. Stephen Curry plays fewer minutes than everyone he's competing with. There just aren't really holes to poke in Doncic or Gilgeous-Alexander's campaigns. They're the best offensive engines in the conference not named Jokic.

Kevin Durant isn't just an offensive engine. He's the everything engine for Phoenix. The Suns are 13-3 with Durant on the floor and 1-9 without him as of this writing, and as impressive as his standard 25 points and 50-40-90 flirtations are on offense, his defense is nearly as important for the Suns. One of the many consequences of Phoenix's extreme investment in shot-creation is a complete deficiency at the center position, and as such, Durant is really the primary rim-protector for a Suns team starting the mostly immobile Jusuf Nurkic. This roster, so far this season, more or less hasn't made sense without Durant on the floor. Missing the amount of time that he has would hurt most players. All it's done for Durant is reinforce how valuable he still is.

There was a slim window in which someone might have challenged Anthony Davis for the last spot. He averaged just 18 points on 43% shooting in a seven-game stretch from late November through early December as he dealt with plantar fasciitis, but take out that seven-game stretch and Davis has hung around the fringes of the MVP race. He's having his best offensive season as a Laker --he's even taking the occasional 3-pointer again! -- and he's doing it, for the first time, as the definitive best player on the team. Measuring his defense isn't as easy it once was. By most measures, he's not quite as impactful as he used to be, but the eye test still suggests he's stellar. It's not his fault he's constantly putting out the fires his terrible defensive teammates start. Put him on a competent defensive roster and he's still a Defensive Player of the Year candidate. The Lakers have a broken roster. Davis is one of the few things holding it together.

ReservesG: Anthony Edwards, TimberwolvesG: Stephen Curry, WarriorsFC: Victor Wembanyama, SpursFC: LeBron James, LakersFC: Jalen Williams, ThunderWC: Kyrie Irving, MavericksWC: Domantas Sabonis, Kings

Let's start with the guards as they were a bit easier. As an individual scorer, Edwards holds up to Doncic and Gilgeous-Alexander, and Minnesota is completely and utterly reliant on him to generate its offense. Yes, the Timberwolves would probably prefer it if he didn't have to trade rim volume for 3-point attempts, but that's the reality of the roster they've put around him, and his improvement as a jump-shooter is going to be essential to this team's long-term championship ambitions. The last step for him is growing as a playmaker. Doncic had that from the jump. Gilgeous-Alexander got there, learning how to leverage his uncanny ability to get to his own spots into the open teammate 3s that drive Oklahoma City's offense. When Edwards makes that leap, he starts competing for MVPs.

Curry has been there and done that where MVPs are concerned, and he's still more or less the same player he was when Golden State last won a championship in 2022. We just get a bit less of him now than we once did. The Warriors, running the deepest rotation in the NBA, are using him for only 31 minutes per game. As you'll see, I give playing time quite a bit of weight. Considering Golden State's net rating dips by 11.5 points per 100 possessions when he sits, those 17 minutes he's out per night are pretty significant. Steve Kerr has started to ramp up his minutes over the past few weeks, and he'll likely be closer to 33 or 34 by the time All-NBA conversations begin, but for now, that's the only real hole in Curry's resume, and it's a justifiable one considering his age.

There were three other guards realistically in the running for what turned out to be one spot, and Ja Morant was unfortunately one of our final cuts here. Like Curry, playing time is a factor here. Morant plays only 28 minutes per night, and he's missed 11 games in total. This is strategic on Memphis' part. The Grizzlies are one of the NBA's deepest teams and keeping Morant healthy will be paramount in April and May. But Morant's efficiency is down from its peak as well, which is meaningful considering the argument against Booker mostly comes down to his own relative shooting struggles. If Morant were playing 32 minutes and missed half as many games, his incredible per-minute production and playmaking may have pushed him over the top. For now, he's barely on the outside looking in.

There are just a few too many holes to poke in Booker's candidacy, at least for now. A perimeter scorer making the team on 44/35/90 shooting isn't unheard of, but it's a tough sell on its face. The Suns have also been meaningfully better with Booker on the bench this season, and are in fact losing Booker's minutes overall. It's not unreasonable to ask a star of Booker's caliber to lift his team to better than a 1-9 record without Durant. He's not a horrible defender, but the metrics suggest he's taken a step back this season on that front. We're always one two-week hot streak from Booker away from reconsidering this. The West's front-court players are just a bit too good to give him that last wild card spot.

That leaves Irving as our final guard pick in the West. It's hard not to contrast his 5-1 record with Doncic sidelined with Booker's struggles when Durant has been hurt, but even outside of that context, Irving deserves a ton of credit for keeping the Mavericks afloat through some early-season struggles. Doncic didn't look like Doncic early on. The Mavericks had to figure out how to integrate Klay Thompson. It's all coming together now, but Irving has been the stabilizer here. You're almost always going to make an All-Star team scoring 24 points per game on 50/47/88 shooting. Irving stood comfortably above Morant and Booker in the guard race.

The frontcourt race was the hardest part here, though my eventual decision to drop Booker did make things slightly easier. Victor Wembanyama was my only true lock in that group. As a general rule, I really try to put my Defensive Player of the Year pick on an All-Star roster unless his offense is so limited that it would be ridiculous. Fortunately, that isn't the case for Wembanyama. There are certainly still kinks in that respect. His shot diet is way too heavy on jumpers, for instance. But you're ultimately getting 24 points and four assists per night out of the obvious Defensive Player of the Year thus far. His selection is therefore a no-brainer.

Alright, let's talk about LeBron. He's going to get voted in by the fans, so when the actual team gets chosen, he'll be on it. But I didn't view him as quite the same caliber of lock that he has been for the past two decades. Excluding his rookie year, I think it would be safe to call this both the worst scoring and worst defensive season of his career. He's averaging 22.8 points per game, the first time he's been below 25 in 20 years. He's rarely getting to the free-throw line. He's matching neither the extreme 3-point volume of the middle of his Lakers tenure nor the remarkable accuracy of last season. He's not exerting effort on defense until absolutely necessary. The Lakers are somehow 11.6 points per 100 possessions better when he rests.

But he's still LeBron James, and even the worst version of LeBron James is pretty damn good. He remains one of the NBA's very best playmakers and a strong if not quite elite overall scorer. As many lowlights as his defense generates, you're also getting two decades of institutional knowledge with him that would benefit a better roster. James may not be his old self. He's still better than pretty much everyone else.

That leaves two roster spots for three players, and our candidates here are Sabonis, Williams and Jaren Jackson Jr. By the slimmest of margins, Jackson misses out. This has been, bar none, Jackson's best offensive season. He's just asked to do less on offense than either Sabonis or Williams, and he's really hurt by the fact that he plays only 28 minutes per game. His defense remains elite, but it's not where it was when he won Defensive Player of the Year. At his peak he was blocking five shots per 100 possessions. He's down to 2.9 this season. He hasn't quite gotten over his fouling issues, though he's better on that front than when he was younger. Jackson probably came a hair closer to selection than Morant did purely because of games played, but in the end, the Grizzlies don't currently have a representative.

So why Williams and Sabonis? Let's start with Williams. He's the middle-ground choice between the three, more of a creator than Jackson and less than Sabonis, but a far better defender than Sabonis without approaching Jackson. Of course, Williams deserves far more credit than he gets on that last front. The Thunder survived between Chet Holmgren's injury and Isaiah Hartenstein's return because Williams played so well at center. Thunder lineups with him at center rank in the 81st percentile in terms of defensive efficiency, which is pretty damn impressive for a 6-foot-6 wing. Oklahoma City's next step probably relies on Williams becoming a bit more consistent as a shot-creator for teammates, but 22 points and five assists while approaching 50-40-90 shooting tend to lead to All-Star selections.

Sabonis is the tougher sell among the two of them because the Kings, as of this writing, are below .500. That's not really on him, though. The Kings are 9.9 points per 100 possessions better with him than without. All of his defensive vulnerabilities remain, and those are going to keep killing Sacramento in any postseason setting they reach, but his numbers, for the regular season at least, are just unimpeachable. If you're into advanced numbers, he currently ranks third in Win Shares, fourth in VORP and seventh in Box Plus-Minus. Prefer box score stats? He's currently on pace to be just the third player ever to average 21 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. The other two are Nikola Jokic and Kevin Garnett. No player at starter volume has ever shot 60% from the floor, 40% from 3-point range and 80% on free throws. Sabonis is doing it now. This is a historic season hiding in plain sight. It's not his fault the Kings mismanaged the roster around him.

Who's on the Bubble?

We've covered Jackson, Booker and Morant already, but to tie a bow on the Memphis players, specifically, I also want to mention Alperen Sengun. He is the closest thing the Rockets have to an All-Star this season, but that doesn't mean he necessarily came all that close. His offensive numbers are down meaningfully from last season, when he nearly made the team. It's just really hard to argue that an offense-first center who doesn't shoot many 3s should make the All-Star team while shooting 47% from the floor. His defense has gotten better, but it's not exactly elite or really all that close yet. If you're putting Sengun on the team, you're doing so because the Rockets are a top seed in a loaded Western Conference. Morant and Jackson have stronger individual cases, but they are ultimately reliant on the idea that a team as good as the Grizzlies or Rockets "deserves" an All-Star.

Some voters think that way. I don't. There are just too many different ways for a team to succeed to treat All-Star selection that way. Sometimes a team is great because it has two or three elite players that power everything they do. That's not what's happening for Memphis or Houston. The Grizzlies are great in part because they have Jackson and Morant, sure, but they're also the NBA's deepest team by far, and Taylor Jenkins has taken advantage of his roster's versatility to build a team that's good at pretty much everything. The Rockets have more definitive weaknesses, but they also have five good starters and two elite reserves that swing games as soon as they enter them. Sengun has been the best Rocket this season, but the one that stands out when you watch their games is pretty clearly Amen Thompson. We're not putting a reserve on the All-Star team. These teams are greater than the sum of their parts. As great as some of those parts are, they are not automatically top-12 players in the conference by virtue of that whole's success.

With the Grizzlies and Rockets out of the way, let's turn our attention to another Western Conference surprise: the Clippers. James Harden is pretty much the only shot-creator that team has, and despite playing the entire season to date without Kawhi Leonard, they are above .500 and very much in the playoff race. So why does Harden miss out? Like Trae Young, his efficiency is a killer here. He's shooting 39.1% from the floor, which is a bit more justifiable when you consider how little offensive talent this team has, but we're still talking about the West here. Any ding to your résumé can kill you in the All-Star race. The Clippers aren't really succeeding because of their offense, more so in spite of it. They rank 20th in offense but fifth in defense. Without Harden, they'd likely rank 26th or 27th in offense, so give him some credit, but he ultimately just gets crowded out of a loaded field.

De'Aaron Fox has All-Star numbers, but they aren't as overwhelming as Sabonis'. He's regressed as a jump-shooter since his outlier 3-point season a year ago, and his defense has taken a real step back as well. We're not sending two Kings considering how uneven their season has been, and Fox been a bit worse than Sabonis. I considered sending two Warriors before their recent swoon. Draymond Green is making 3s again! His defense and playmaking remains as powerful as ever. But like Curry and the Grizzlies guys, playing time is a killer here. At 28.6 minutes per game, he's fighting an uphill battle under normal circumstances, and making an All-Star case as a single-digit scorer is decidedly not normal. No, making an All-Star Game as a Green-level scorer means being absolutely flawless in every other regard. Green isn't quite there anymore, but he's closer than he has any right to be.