The five NBA players who might make their first All-Star appearance in 2023

The NBA All-Star Game can resemble a popularity contest due to the method used to select the rosters. Will the game in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2023 turn out to be unique?

The league’s coaches vote to determine the reserves, while fans, the media, and other players vote to determine the starters. Outstanding performance is important, but reputation is almost as important and can cause some players to struggle to get recognized.

Take the contest from the previous year. Twenty of the 24 players that were initially chosen to the All-Star lineups had previously participated in the event. Seven first-time All-Stars participated in the game, although three of them were picked by NBA commissioner Adam Silver as injury replacements. Nevertheless, there is always a chance for someone to earn a spot in his first All-Star game completely on merit. In fact, the 2020 All-Star Game included nine first-time All-Stars only three seasons prior. Some of these players, including Trae Young, Luka Doncic, Donovan Mitchell, and Jayson Tatum, have since established themselves as regular picks and will likely compete in Salt Lake City on February 19.

There are plenty of potential successors who could become first-time All-Stars in their footsteps. Let’s examine the five players who have the best chance of participating in the 2023 All-Star Game.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder

In NBA history, 60 of the 62 players who averaged at least 30 points per game before the All-Star break made the All-Star Game. Wilt Chamberlain in 1970 and Adrian Dantley in 1983 were the only two who didn’t because they both sustained injuries.

Therefore, mark Gilgeous-Alexander down for this year.

With 31.1 points per game, the Thunder combo guard, who is only 24 years old, is now the third-best scorer in the NBA, trailing only Luka Doncic and Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors. Gilgeous-first Alexander’s All-Star selection should have been justified by his scoring average alone, but this budding star is more than just a walking bucket. He’s currently one of the league’s most active attacking players.

Only eight ball handlers in the NBA have participated in more pick and roll actions than he has thus far this season, and no player has driven the ball to the rack more often than he has.

Through 19 games, Gilgeous-Alexander has a greater usage rate than Warriors guard Stephen Curry, Lakers forward LeBron James, and Nets forward Kevin Durant.

For good reason, Oklahoma City relies on his offensive leadership; the Thunder benefit when he is in charge of things. This season, while Gilgeous-Alexander is playing, the Thunder’s offense is averaging 114.6 points per 100 possessions, which would place them ninth in the NBA on a team basis. However, when he sits on the bench, that important number plummets to 102.6, the league’s poorest offensive efficiency.

He blends handles, footwork, and a variety of shot types as well as any player under the age of 25, making him one of the league’s most innovative and self-sufficient volume scorers. This season, he has also significantly increased his scoring efficiency.

According to Second Spectrum, the average Gilgeous-Alexander shot last year scored 1.02 points, which placed it in the 35th percentile. It is 1.15 points this season, which places it in the 74th percentile.

The improvement in his jump-shooting statistics is the single most important element driving his efficiency increase. Gilgeous-Alexander had a poor effective field goal percentage of just 44.7% on his jump attempts last season, placing him 95th out of the NBA’s top 100 jump shooters. With an eFG% of 50.8 this season, he is ranked 52nd, just slightly better than the league average but still a huge improvement in a “make or miss” league.

He’s also one of the few emerging players who still aims for midrange shots as a jump shooter. Gilgeous-Alexander is heading in the opposite direction as the NBA abandons non-paint 2s. Only Durant, Chicago’s DeMar DeRozan, and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid are converting midrange shots at better percentages among that group. He is in the top 10 of non-paint 2s attempted this season. This young kid is developing into one of the NBA’s few young midrange savants, maybe due to his experience playing with Chris Paul a few years ago (or perhaps not?).

He has a similar variety of tools to other young scorers in the league. He is developing into one of the league’s most complete and effective volume scorers by flirting with the holy trinity of thresholds of 50-40-90 — his 39.1% 3-point shooting is now the lone figure below that mark.

De’Aaron Fox, Sacramento Kings

The league is buzzing about The Beam Team. With a powerful offensive under Fox’s direction and in his sixth season in the league, the Kings are destroying the opposition.

Fox, 24, has established himself as one of the fastest players on the court, and this speed continues to be his defining quality. When he is on the floor, the Kings become the league’s quickest team, averaging 104 possessions per 48 minutes.

In each of the last three seasons, Fox has averaged more than 20 points per game, consistently putting up All-Star-caliber scoring totals. He has improved his game even more this season, averaging a career-high 25.4 points while hitting his highest percentages from the free-throw line (81.0%), the 3-point line (39.0%), and the 2-point range (60.2%).

The Kings are winning games, which is more significant for Fox’s All-Star argument. Sacramento has never finished higher than seventh in the Western Conference at the All-Star break during his career. The Kings have started the break in 13th position in four of the last five seasons. The Kings have won eight of their last 11 games to move into fifth place in the West, perhaps putting Fox & Co. on pace to break the longest postseason absence in major North American professional sports. However, there is still plenty of time until All-Star selections are chosen (since 2006). That would undoubtedly be deserving of an All-Star selection.

Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers

Last season, the Pacers acquired the 22-year-old guard in exchange for a transaction that included Haliburton and All-Star player Domantas Sabonis. Few anticipated that it would occur so rapidly.

Haliburton is now a league leader in almost all important shot-creation metrics in his first full season with the Pacers. According to Second Spectrum monitoring, his passes result in more than 26 shots a game, which is the highest in the league ahead of stalwart All-Stars like Nikola Jokic of Denver, James Harden of Philadelphia, and Paul of Phoenix. His league-best 10.9 assists per game help Indiana score a massive 28.9 points per game, which is the most in the league.

The Pacers were predicted by ESPN’s summer projection to finish last in the Eastern Conference with a record of 23-59 before the season even began. The Pacers have a top-10 offense because of the rise of Haliburton, and they have already won 10 games, putting them in the top part of the Eastern Conference rankings.

When the 2021 All-Star Game was moved from Indianapolis to Atlanta two seasons ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Indiana lost an All-Star Game. An All-Star appearance for Haliburton, a deserving first-time pick, would help to partially make up for that omission.

Lauri Markkanen, Utah Jazz

Utah was not expected to have a successful season, much like Sacramento and Indiana. Well, the Jazz are, and Utah’s unexpected start is being fueled by Markkanen’s breakout season.

The No. 7 selection in the 2017 draft is posting his greatest scoring totals of his career after unimpressive stints with the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers. Coach Will Hardy’s wide-open offensive areas have allowed Markkanen, who is averaging 22.0 points per game, to thrive in unexpected ways. According to Second Spectrum, the 7-footer is now shooting 66% of his shots in the lane, which is second among the top 20 most active paint shooters in the NBA this season (the NBA average is 57%). He also ranks seventh in the NBA in total field goals made in the paint this season.

This season, Markkanen is also shooting 36.5% from beyond the arc, but it only tells part of the tale. According to Second Spectrum, Markkanen has made the most catch-and-shoot 3-pointers among forwards this season, making 111 of them on a 40.5% shooting clip. As a 7-footer, Markannen is an essential part of Utah’s wide-open offensive style because of his capacity to spread out opposition defenses.

Markkanen, who was acquired by Utah in the Mitchell deal from Cleveland, is a model example of a big man in the contemporary NBA. He is a large, powerful, talented player who can succeed as an inside menace and a 3-point shooter. His ability to shoot the ball and drive the ball from the edges to the basket is very outstanding for a player of his height, and it helps him in Utah’s disorganized systems. This season, he might offer the Jazz a local All-Star.

Desmond Bane, Memphis Grizzlies

Bane might be the player with the best case to make his All-Star debut if it weren’t for a sprained right big toe he sustained earlier this month. At the beginning of the NBA season, no player was drawing more attention than he was.

Bane outperformed both Durant and Kyrie Irving in just his fourth game of the year, leading the Grizzlies to a victory over the Brooklyn Nets with a career-best 38 points and seven assists (also a career high). Bane demonstrated to the NBA that he was a far more complete scorer than he had been in his first two seasons in the league by shooting 10-of-13 on unassisted shots that night, generating 26 of those points on his own.

One of the finest young 3-point shooters in the game now is Bane. Although he has hit an astounding 43.6% of his over 900 3-point shots in his career, the majority of those tries in his first two seasons came from Grizzlies teammates. Although Bane’s stats were already being compared to great catch-and-shoot players like Klay Thompson of Golden State, his explosive season-long breakout has been driven by his ability to create his own opportunities, and this has changed the conversation surrounding his potential ceiling.

He attempted five unaided shots for every 100 possessions in his first season. That figure increased to 10.1 last year. Despite the fact that Bane is paired with Ja Morant, one of the league’s most used teammates, it has increased once more to 14.5 this year.

The ability to mix volume and efficiency as an unassisted scorer is a crucial aspect of superstardom in professional basketball, and Bane has improved upon that aspect of his game in Year 3.

Sadly, the cruel sting of the injury bug destroyed Bane’s fantastic start to this season. Even so, he might have enough time to reestablish himself as a strong All-Star candidate if he is able to play again in December.

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