All-Star Game Proving Talent Still Resides Near Top of NBA Draft
Tonight, the world’s best basketball players will congregate in Indianapolis, Indiana for the 2024 NBA All-Star game.
Each year, the event highlights the league’s best and brightest stars — those capable of bringing home both individual and team hardware.
This year, the game returns to its old format — East versus West — opposed to the pickup-style draft its had in years past. Despite the myriad of player types and paths towards star down, there’s a similar theme that rings across the All-Stars: they were selected high in the 2024 draft.
Of the 24 All-Stars selected this year, just five were selected outside of the lottery, with two of those — former champions Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawhi Leonard — narrowly missing the cut at No. 15.
A whopping 21% percent of players participating in tonight’s event were selected first overall: LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and Paolo Banchero. If you were to broaden that to top five picks, 11 of the 24 players fit into that category.
Taking the average of all 24 players rounds out to about 10, meaning if you’re looking to draft a player to carry your franchise to victory, that’s going to be your range.
Of course, there have been plenty of success stories outside of drafting in the upper ranks.
The biggest outlier is West starter and two-time MVP Nikola Jokic, who carried the Denver Nuggets to a championship just last year. He was selected No. 41 overall, and has become one of the bigger underdog stories in modern sports.
The others were Tyrese Maxey at No. 21 and Jalen Brunson, the only other second round pick at No. 33.
The All-Star game tips off at 7:30 p.m. CT tonight.
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