Anthony Edwards egregiously snubbed as NBA All-Star starters announced

Stephen Curry making it over Edwards just doesn't make logical sense in 2026.

Jan 17, 2026; San Antonio, Texas, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) looks up in the second half against the San Antonio Spurs at Frost Bank Center. | Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images

The NBA announced its All-Star starters for the 2025-26 season on Monday afternoon, and Timberwolves superstar Anthony Edwards was not among the five players who made it in the Western Conference. It's a pretty egregious snub for a player who might end up being a first team All-NBA selection when the season comes to an end.

The five starters from the West are Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Victor Wembanyama, and Stephen Curry. The starters were selected in a weighting voted process where fan votes account for 50 percent and player and media voting account for 25 percent each. For the first time, there were no positional restraints this year.

SGA, Jokic, and Doncic were all obvious locks. Wembanyama making it isn't a surprise, even though he's only played in 28 games this season. The player who Edwards pretty clearly should've made it over is Curry, who feels like a popularity/legacy selection at age 37. Edwards has a better team record and better stats pretty much across the board compared to Curry at roughly the halfway point of the season.

Stephen Curry and Anthony Edwards statistical comparison. | Stathead

That's the danger of including fan voting in the selection process. Curry is one of the best and most popular players in NBA history, and he happens to play in a much bigger market than Edwards. He's having a great season in his 17th year in the league and remains an elite player, but there isn't much of a rational basketball argument that he's more deserving of this honor than Edwards.

Edwards was fourth in the West in player voting and fifth in media voting, but he was seventh in fan voting. He lost a tiebreaker in weighted score to Wembanyama because of fan voting.

Three voting groups determined the starters for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game:

▪️ Fans (50%)
▪️ NBA players (25%)
▪️ Media panel (25%)

Complete voting results are available here: https://t.co/0YQtBsIaGp

Below are the overall rankings for the top finishers in each conference. pic.twitter.com/W21e8EOvpH

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) January 19, 2026

Kevin Love in 2014 remains the last Timberwolves All-Star starter. Edwards will obviously be selected by coaches as a reserve for the fourth straight year, but this should've been the year he was voted as a starter for the first time.

With that said, "starter" should be in quotations because in the current format of the league's All-Star Game, the five players selected in the West and the East aren't going to suit up alongside one another like they would've in the past. This year's event will break the All-Stars into two U.S. teams (with at least 16 total players) and one World team consisting of at least 8 international players. Those three squads will play 12-minute games in a round robin format, with the top two advancing to a championship game. This will all take place on February 15 at the Intuit Dome, home of the LA Clippers.

Edwards is having the best season of his career so far at 24 years old. He's increased his scoring average for the fifth straight year, sitting at fifth in the NBA with 29.6 points per game. He's also shooting over 50 percent from the field for the first time and is at nearly 42 percent from long range on over eight attempts per game. To complement his scoring, Edwards is averaging 4.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.3 steals, and 0.8 blocks.

Anthony Edwards' points per game has increased every season of his career, but what's especially impressive is that his True Shooting Percentage has also risen every year.

Scoring more and scoring more efficiently is a helluva combo. pic.twitter.com/HC1puRjxAy

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) January 18, 2026

Perhaps most impressively, Edwards is an absurd 33 of 46 (71.7 percent) from the field and 11 of 18 (61.1 percent) in clutch time, which is the final five minutes of games that are within five points. No one else is remotely close to that level of clutch efficiency. Curry is 21 of 48 (43.8 percent) in clutch time this season.

Edwards, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, happens to be coming off one of his best games ever, an eruption for a career-high 55 points in the Wolves' thrilling loss to the Spurs on Saturday night. Perhaps this snub will serve as motivation for him moving forward.

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