Team LeBron is looking for its fifth consecutive victory in the NBA All-Star Game, as the four-time NBA champion has led his team to victory every year since the game’s new format took hold in 2018. On Feb. 20, Team LeBron will again face off against Team Durant, captained by the Nets star, who is an All-Star Game captain for the second time in his prolific NBA career. Like last year, Durant will be inactive for the game, having pulled out of the contest with a knee injury. But he'll still draft as one of the exhibition's two captains.
As a result of Durant’s absence in the game, Celtics forward Jayson Tatum has been upgraded to the starter pool.
Ahead of the NBA All-Star draft Thursday, writer Ben Pickman (Team LeBron) and NBA editor Jarrel Harris (Team Durant) put their general manager hats on to try to predict how the draft will go.
As will be the case in Thursday’s draft, Team LeBron picked first from the starters pool, while Team Durant picked first in the reserves pool.