2023 NBA All-Star game: A look at the perfect starting lineup for both conferences

Howdy, folks. Welcome back to Layup Lines. It’s Sykes, once again, here to usher you into the weekend. Today, I’m coming at you with my hypothetical NBA All-Star starting lineups. Let’s dig in.

To be clear, I’m a fan voter just like the rest of you. There is a media vote, but I do not have one. We’re just doing this for funsies. Let’s jump in.

Sykes’ Eastern Conference picks: 

• Jayson Tatum (Forward)
• Kevin Durant (Forward)
• Giannis Antetokounmpo (Forward)
• Donovan Mitchell (Guard)
• Jaylen Brown (Guard)

Picking the guards was the easy part — at least for starters. Between Kyrie Irving’s and James Harden’s games missed for their respective teams and Atlanta’s poor record behind Trae Young, Mitchell and Brown became easy choices.

The other option here was Tyrese Haliburton, who is leading the league in assists with 10.2 per game while averaging another 20 points on near 40-50-90 levels of efficiency. He may not be healthy once the game rolls around, though, and isn’t quite the defender Jaylen Brown is. I know we don’t make All-Star picks behind defense, but it’s something that should still be recognized and rewarded.

Leaving Joel Embiid out was hard considering he’s the reason the 76ers are surging, but he’s also missed a chunk of games already and started the season slowly. Antetokounmpo hasn’t been his most efficient, but he’s still one of the best players in the world and the best two-way force in the NBA.

Sykes’ Western Conference picks: 

• Nikola Jokic (Forward)
• Lauri Markkanen (Forward)
• LeBron James (Forward)
• Luka Doncic (Guard)
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (Guard)

This was hard. For a while, I wrestled with actually taking LeBron James off of the ballet.

Yes, he’s been incredible so far this season. But the Lakers are also 20-25. Lauri Markkanen has been the best player on a better team. It made sense to include him. But I really, really wanted to get Zion Williamson in here as a starter. He’ll undoubtedly be an All-Star, but he’s probably missed too many games to be in the starting lineup at this point.

The guards weren’t nearly as difficult. Luka Doncic might be the league’s MVP so, of course, he’s a starter. Stephen Curry would’ve been here if not for his recent shoulder injury. That knocked him beneath both Ja Morant and Gilgeous-Alexander on my ballot.

The stat that did it for me was this — the Thunder’s offense drops a full six points per 100 possessions without SGA on the court. It goes from 115.7 to 109.7. Essentially, the Thunder go from being a top 5 offense with him to dead last by a mile without him. That’s MVP caliber stuff. He’s a starter and an All-NBA player if you ask me.

Alright, now you can roast me.

The first Clutch Player of the Year award is one I’m very excited about, personally. Don’t get me wrong — this award is going to be wild.

But De’Aaron Fox is the one who should probably win it. At least, there’s a legitimate case for him right now, according to my colleague Bryan Kalbrosky. He broke down why Fox is in the lead for the league’s new award and, honestly, I can’t argue with him.

“Sacramento has entrusted him with 28.0 percent of their clutch field goal attempts, which is the third-highest in the league behind only LeBron James and Jaylen Brown.

When the game is on the line, the ball is going to Fox because he is one of the rare players who is more efficient when the game is on the line.

His effective field goal percentage in clutch minutes (63.3 percent) is much higher than his typical minutes (53.8 percent) and the league average in clutch minutes (45.9 percent) as well.”

The thing about clutch play is that players tend to shoot a lot worse when the game is winding down. But Fox somehow improves. He literally doesn’t miss. He hasn’t to this point. And that, folks, is a special player.

Who doesn’t love a good, ole fashioned renewed rivalry? That’s what this is between the Hawks and Knicks here.

The Hawks are on the up-and-up these days — they’ve won four straight, including a win over Luka Doncic’s Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday. Neither offense is playing particularly well at this point in the season — they’re both out of the top 10 offenses in the NBA in their last 5 games. I’d take the under here tonight.

— Aaron Gordon has a brilliant bribe to get himself into the All-Star game

— Draymond Green is out here shaking Deuce Tatum like a salt shaker

— Kings fans took over Crypto Dot Com arena and the NBA is officially bizarro world now

— Jamal Murray thinks he’s a better scorer than John Stockton, and he’s absolutely right

That’s all, folks! Enjoy the weekend.