NBA All-Star ballot: Zach Lowe makes his 2024 picks

With the league set to announce the 14 All-Star reserves tonight, it’s time to reveal my full 2023-24 All-Star teams. As always, this is both fun and agonizing. You get 12 spots per conference. Not 14. Not 15. Just 12. There will be pain.

I start from scratch and follow the same positional rules as the fans in choosing starters (two guards, three frontcourt players) and the coaches in picking the seven reserves (two guards, three frontcourt, two wild cards).

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Starters

G Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers
G Jalen Brunson, New York Knicks
FC Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics
FC Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks
FC Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers*

Reserves

G Donovan Mitchell, Cleveland Cavaliers
G Tyrese Maxey, Philadelphia 76ers
FC Jaylen Brown, Boston Celtics
FC Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat
FC Julius Randle, New York Knicks*
WC Damian Lillard, Milwaukee Bucks
WC Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic

* Randle injury replacement: Derrick White, Boston Celtics
* Injury replacement No. 2, if necessary: Trae Young

• Haliburton, Brunson, Mitchell, and Maxey have been the East’s four best guards, with Maxey trailing the first three by a hair. Haliburton has missed 13 games, but he has the best numbers — and by a lot in some categories. There is no magical games-played threshold; each voter has his or her own criteria. I feel funny once a player has missed more than one-third of the season. Games missed is a useful tiebreaker. Team success can serve the same purpose.

But sometimes a player is so spectacular, the games and minutes don’t matter as much. That’s the case for Embiid and Haliburton. The numbers speak for themselves, but Haliburton’s impact transcends the objectively measurable. He has imprinted his swashbuckling style and broader basketball philosophy upon an entire franchise — and helped drag it from the lottery back into respectability faster than even its higher-ups expected.

He’s healthy now, and by mid-February those 13 missed games should amount to a much smaller percentage of Indiana’s overall schedule.

• Mitchell and Brunson are very close. Mitchell has the edge in scoring volume and knifing north-south power; Brunson has shot much better on 3s. Advanced stats (barely) lean Mitchell. This is a case where the gap in minutes and games — Brunson has logged 400 more minutes — breaks the tie. Both are locks, but Brunson deserved the honor of starting — and certainly over Lillard.

Mitchell and Maxey snare the first two reserve spots here.

• Reserve ballot rules require three of the remaining five spots go to frontcourt players. That leaves only two more spots for guards, where the candidate pool is deepest. There isn’t much difference between my frontcourt choices — Adebayo, Randle, Brown — and the next group of Banchero, Pascal Siakam, Scottie Barnes and Jarrett Allen. I wouldn’t argue too much with almost any combination of those three. (Honorable mention to DeMar DeRozan, Kristaps Porzingis, and a few others.)

Advanced stats favor Barnes, who has made a huge leap as a shooter and all-around offensive engine. He leads this group in assists, blocks, steals, and 3-point shooting. It’s hard to leave him out. But both he and the Toronto Raptors still seem to be feeling out how and when to lean into each of his discrete skills.

There’s something unformed about Barnes in comparison to these other guys. That’s not a knock; it’s almost the opposite. It makes him more exciting going forward. The Siakam and OG Anunoby trades muddied that process. Barnes’ defensive ceiling is high, but the execution is up and down, which is typical for young players.

There is also a threshold of losing at which it is hard to make an All-Star game unless someone’s statistical edge is overwhelming. The Raptors at 17-30 are below that threshold.

• Adebayo has slumped along with the reeling Heat, but he’s a two-way rock averaging 21 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 4 dimes — with a proven record of impacting winning at the highest level. He has been Miami’s closest thing to a constant amid injuries and underwhelming play from just about everyone else — including Jimmy Butler, who falls short here. Butler has missed 15 games and not been the same all-court wrecker when available. (That’s shifting again; Butler has looked mean and bouncy in Miami’s last three games — including their streak-busting win over the Sacramento Kings Wednesday. We know how good that version of Butler is: an All-NBA-level player who ratchets it up in the playoffs. He has been very good this season. If you want him in, I can’t quibble.)

• Randle is not everyone’s cup of tea, and he is the anti-Adebayo in that his game has collapsed in the postseason. But he has been dynamite since an ugly first half-dozen games — No. 1 among these guys in scoring, No. 2 in both assists and rebounds, and shooting 54% on 2s. He still holds the ball too much on some nights, but he has sped up his decision-making. He’s attacking faster off the catch, and whipping passes a beat earlier when he spots the defense in rotation. Randle is even cutting harder off the ball.

The Knicks’ brute-force identity radiates from Randle — those shoulder-checking, pointy-elbowed drives that send defenders careening into the stanchion. His defense comes and goes, but he’s solid when he dials in.

• OK, time for the Jaylen Brown conversation. He’s a tad overrated. He’s averaging 22.6 points, down from 26.6 last season. Advanced numbers frown upon him, likely due to his unreliable decision-making; he’s averaging 3.7 assists and 2.4 turnovers. Those advanced numbers paint him as a mediocre and sometimes inattentive defender.

There are some smart executives and coaches who aren’t sure if Brown is the second- or even third-best player on the Celtics; a good chunk of them — probably a majority — would nominate White as Boston’s second All-Star. But we need another frontcourt player, and the Celtics need at least one more All-Star after Tatum. Brown is eligible at frontcourt. White is not.

Some of those Brown skeptics would then elect Porzingis as the second Boston All-Star, and Porzingis’ combination of shooting and rim protection indeed transforms the Celtics into an entirely different team. But Porzingis has missed 14 games and averages only 29.8 minutes. He has maybe the coziest set-up of any All-Star candidate. Boston does not ask him to do much shot creation on offense aside from mashing smaller guys in the post — which he has done with effective cruelty.

Brown has no such luxury. He is the undisputed No. 2 option, though it’s closer this season. Brown’s salary and history with the team grant him leeway for some entitlement touches that widen that usage gap.

But there is value in someone soaking up lots of touches at decent efficiency. Brown is shooting 56% on 2s and 35% on 3s. He is a menace in transition — master of a sudden backdoor cut while running the wings. He can bully mismatches and make tough 2s when the shot clock gets low.

His decision-making has improved; he has great chemistry in the two-man game with Porzingis, and Boston’s coaching staff has crafted sets that catapult Brown into the action with a clear view of the floor — and easier passing reads. The Celtics have scored 1.307 points per possession on trips featuring a Brown pick-and-roll, No. 2 (behind, gulp, Nikola Jokic) among 135 guys who have run at least 200 such plays. Brown is a big reason Boston is finally winning the minutes Tatum rests.

Brown is more patient in traffic. He doesn’t quite operate one or two steps ahead of defenses, but he’s throwing more passes that anticipate rotations and arrive early.

Advanced numbers underrate Brown’s defense. His versatility is a luxury. The Celtics have used him on players ranging from Antetokounmpo to smaller point guards. He makes an impact as a helper, including with some emphatic blocked shots. Brown’s attention to detail can waiver away from the ball, but that’s happening less.

• It’s fascinating to imagine how White’s numbers might change if you replaced Brown with a league-average wing — how White’s efficiency would hold up if the Celtics needed him to ascend into a true No. 2 and sometimes No. 1 option. That exercise — the old usage-efficiency trade-off — applies to any discussion of Young, too. The Hawks are a massive disappointment, and Young is still a turnstile on defense, but what Young does as a passing-and-scoring centerpiece is very hard to find and makes everyone else’s job easier.

Young was one of my final cuts for the original 12-man roster — which is, by the way, more consideration than most appear to have given him. (A lot of All-Star columns, podcasts and TV lists have not even mentioned him.) He’s averaging 27 points and 11 assists — the latter trailing only Haliburton.

The Hawks aren’t bad because of Young. Injuries have hurt. The Young-Dejounte Murray pairing hasn’t worked. There are defensive holes everywhere.

But the Hawks at 20-27 are around that threshold of losing where it becomes hard to justify naming anyone an All-Star if the numbers are even close-ish. And assists are really the only place Young has a big edge on every other candidate. Young is up to 37% on 3s after an icy start, but he has hit just 47% on 2s — including a ghastly 53% at the rim.

Lillard is averaging 25 points on about equivalent shooting for a team 12 games above the Hawks. Lillard benefits from playing alongside an MVP candidate in Antetokounmpo, obviously. But the Bucks just play in a different universe than the Hawks — in substance and style. Their games matter. The Hawks exist at this point to fill out the schedule, make trades and prepare for next season.

Lillard has been one of the league’s best clutch players. Young is 20-of-54 in the last minutes of close games, and 5-of-23 on 3s. The Hawks are minus-59 in Young’s 87 clutch minutes.

There is also something laissez-faire and carnivalesque about the Hawks’ style that emanates at least in some part from Young’s game — a belief that this or that possession doesn’t matter because they can always get it back on offense later. That laxity is not a recipe for major success.

• With Lillard in, the last spot went (barely) to Banchero over Siakam, Young, Barnes, White and a few others. Banchero’s raw numbers — 23 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assist — are right in line with that group. He’s a little behind in advanced stats, though not too far from Brown, Adebayo and Randle — and neck-and-neck with Brown by some metrics. His shooting numbers are so-so: 45% overall, 35% on 3s after a mini-slump. He takes a ton of tough jumpers and does not make enough to justify the volume.

But the Magic are winning, and Banchero went several games starting alongside Caleb Houstan, Goga Bitadze and Chuma Okeke. No one in this group has had to carry a heavier load. Even at full health, the Magic are short in shot creation among their guards.

The Magic’s scoring margin being better with Banchero on the bench says almost nothing about him and tons about Orlando’s makeshift starting fives. (Two of their most productive players, Cole Anthony and Moritz Wagner, are backups.)

Their second-best player — Franz Wagner — plays the same position as Banchero in the same style. On some nights, Banchero is both Orlando’s point guard and No. 1 scoring option. All things considered, he has held up well. He’s a good passer and defends hard. His size allows him to guard almost any position — and to battle on the glass.

• Siakam’s candidacy is harder to parse given Toronto’s poor record and his midseason trade to Indiana. He might be the best frontcourt candidate to fall short here; the Raptors finished plus-9 with Siakam on the floor and have struggled badly all season when Barnes plays without him.

• Allen came on a little too late, but he has played at an All-Star level for the last 20-plus games.

• I have a bit more fun and positional flexibility with injury replacement picks. (The league has typically picked the player with the next-highest voting total.) If Randle’s shoulder injury keeps him out, I’d nominate White to take his place — and as the East’s No. 1 injury replacement.

He is as deserving as anyone here, and granting him this add-on spot gives the league’s best team (record-wise) three players while honoring what may well end up being the best two-way season of White’s career.

White might be the best defensive guard in the league. It’s easy to brush that aside and focus instead on points — specifically on Young averaging 10 more points than White. For 75 defensive possessions every game, White adds value to Boston in ways that are harder to quantify. On the equivalent 75 possessions, Young subtracts value from the Hawks. Does that close the scoring gap and Young’s huge edge — 10.8 to 4.7 — in assists? Maybe not all the way, but it covers some of the distance.

It’s not as if White is some wallflower on offense, either. He runs 24 pick-and-rolls per 100 possessions, tied with Tatum for most on the Celtics, per Second Spectrum. Boston has scored almost 1.16 points on shots generated directly from White pick-and-rolls — 5th among 135 ball handlers who have run at least 200 such plays, according to tracking data.

He might be Boston’s best screener on and off the ball; the White-Tatum two-man game is foundational to Boston’s offense. Some of that is opponents stashing their smallest defenders on White, meaning any switch gifts Tatum a mismatch. But that’s not the whole story. Those plays work not just because of who defends White but also because of what White can do, starting with his ability to handle the ball so that Tatum can act as screener.

White can make plays rolling to the rim, flare out for 3s, and keep the machine moving by catching and driving. He is a sneaky-good one-on-one scorer plowing inside for floaters and layups. White is averaging 16 points and leads this group of candidates in 3-point shooting — a tidy 40%. Advanced stats place him on the Maxey/Brunson level. He’s in. Young gets the next injury replacement slot if needed.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Starters

G Luka Doncic, Dallas Mavericks
G Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder
FC Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns
FC Nikola Jokic, Denver Nuggets
FC Kawhi Leonard, LA Clippers

Reserves

G Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves
G Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
FC Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
FC LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
FC Paul George, LA Clippers
WC Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns
WC De’Aaron Fox, Sacramento Kings

• The first 11 spots — everyone but Fox — were locks. George and Booker seem obvious now, but I had them on my preliminary reserve ballot three weeks ago when ESPN’s Chris Herring and I went through our early picks on the Lowe Post podcast. Booker’s recent scoring spree ended the debate over his case.

• George was the Clippers’ best player over the first 15 games or so as Leonard found his bounce and James Harden got through his latest human resources onboarding. The top four in the West — Denver, Oklahoma City, Minnesota and the Clippers — have separated themselves from the pack. The Clips are the only team that gets two All-Stars here, and I suspect that will be the case on the real team. Is that fair? (Harden deserves a look too, but not much more than a cursory one given the depth of candidates in the West.)

George’s scoring has hummed along, even with Harden running the show and Leonard reasserting his superstar status. If anything, George looks more explosive and sure of himself. He remains one of the league’s best wing defenders — a long-armed phantom gliding around picks.

He has indisputably been one of the 12 best two-way players in the West. He’s just having a better season than the No. 2 and No. 3 All-Star candidates on the other three elite West teams: Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, Chet Holmgren, Jalen Williams and Jamal Murray.

George leads all of them in scoring. He’s the second- or third-best defender among them, depending on where you’d rate Holmgren today. George has no holes in his game.

All of those other guys are worthy choices. You want one or two of them on? Have at it. A couple would make it in the East.

• Listeners may recall my declaration in the immediate aftermath of Denver winning last season’s title that Murray would make his first All-Star team this season — that the coaches would surely reward his steely postseason performance with a reserve spot. Perhaps they will. I’d have zero issue with that.

Murray has been outstanding when healthy: 21.4 points and 6.5 assists on 48% shooting, working his one-of-a-kind pick-and-roll ballet with Jokic. But Murray has missed 14 games, and he doesn’t have the supernova production (at least in the regular season) to compensate for that in such a crowded field. (Kyrie Irving has also played at an All-Star level when available for the Mavericks.)

• I can hear Atlanta fans asking why Young can’t make it from a 20-27 team but Curry nabs a spot despite the Warriors’ 20-24 record. Well, Curry is better than Young, and the Warriors are better than the Hawks. Curry is shooting 41% on 3s and 52% on 2s compared to 36.8% and 46% for Young. Curry is bigger than Young, and competes harder on defense.

The Warriors have been outscored by 0.2 points per game, the Hawks by 2.7 points. Golden State has faced the league’s toughest schedule, Atlanta one of the easiest. The Warriors are (right now) close to a .500 team in true quality; the Hawks have been plain bad.

And, yes, it matters that Curry is a four-time champion, two-time MVP, and one of the greatest players of all-time. You make room for guys of that stature. But this is no legacy pick. Curry remains an offense almost unto himself — a bobbing, weaving, all-court, every-second threat to incinerate your defense. He’s always lurking, somewhere, maybe hiding behind that larger human over there. Curry creates shots for teammates just by moving around. He is the system, and there is nothing else like it in the league.

Between age, suspensions and dismal play from support guys, Curry hasn’t had much more around him than Young.

• If Minnesota gets one All-Star, it should be Edwards — though it’s a bit closer than perhaps the noise makes it out to be. The Wolves are winning because of their defense; Gobert is their keystone on that end. The Wolves rank 19th in points per possession and have struggled in fourth quarters. (They are 27th in fourth-quarter offensive efficiency.) Given his shooting and versatility, Towns has a case as Minnesota’s best offensive player. Even as a second option, he’s averaging 22.6 points and sniffing (again) 50/40/90 shooting splits.

The discourse on Edwards as Michael Jordan 2.0 has gotten a little ahead of itself. He’s an incredible shot-maker with a telegenic sense of the moment — completely fearless. He is an electric leaper built like a tank. He doesn’t so much dunk over people as down and through them; you half expect his victims to disintegrate when Edwards thunders on them.

We remember the sequences when Edwards buries a team with two or three implausible, step-back 2s — the crowd roaring, Edwards puffing his chest. We are not as good at remembering when Edwards misses a bunch of those one-on-one jumpers, as he has in a few of Minnesota’s more rickety crunch-time performances.

But he is Minnesota’s best blend of offense and defense, and he without a doubt belongs here.

• There were two starting frontcourt spots to split among Leonard, Davis, James and Durant. You can’t go wrong, really. James still has a case to start. He’s tied with Davis for second in this group in scoring, tops in assists and shooting 52% — including 40% on 3s. He leads this group in a couple of catch-all advanced metrics, though he doesn’t fare as well in others. He’s closer to starter than borderline.

But these other three have outproduced him. All three have been better on defense; Davis and Leonard are two of the league’s very best on that end. Durant is averaging 29 points, 6 assists and 6 rebounds on 53% shooting — including a whopping 45% on 3s. It’s hard to deny him a starting spot given that level of production on a team that has needed every bit of it.

It’s very hard to justify giving a .500 team two All-Star starters. If James and Davis were two of the conference’s best five players, the Lakers wouldn’t be where they are. The roster around them isn’t great, but this has been a bad, stolid offense for years.

• For most of the season, I had Davis penciled in above Leonard but flipped that in the last 10 days. Given his ability to work on and off the ball, Leonard is more of a constant all-encompassing threat on offense. You are aware of him every second in a way that isn’t quite true for Davis. Teams give Davis jumpers. The same teams yelp in fear whenever Leonard is anywhere near the ball.

Regardless, all of these guys are locks.

• Fox snares the final spot over Alperen Sengun, Towns, Gobert, Domantas Sabonis, Lauri Markkanen, Murray — and then one mini-tier down, Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. (The next mini-tier would include Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams in Oklahoma City, among others.)

• Williamson and Ingram haven’t quite been good or consistent enough to make this 12-man roster. They are great players — All-Stars in other, better seasons — but the cracks in their respective games explain some of New Orleans’ maddening inconsistency.

• Fox leads this group in scoring at 27.5 points per game on some of the best shooting numbers of his career — including 38% from deep on way higher volume. He felt like the best combination of production and durability.

Fox has logged six fewer games than Sabonis and seven fewer than Towns, but he plays so much when available that the minutes gap isn’t all that big. He is 100-plus minutes ahead of Markkanen despite playing the same number of games and more than 300 ahead of Murray.

• Markkanen made a late push, and has about as good a case as last season when he made it. His size and shooting fit any lineup. Markkanen’s defenders stick to him, and he draws extra attention as he moves around. That shifting gravity creates oxygen for everyone. It is a way he can create for others without passing the ball or even touching it. He does more for his teammates than his paltry assist numbers — 1.9 per game — suggest. (Utah losing five of its last seven, including three meh games from Markkanen, hurt him a bit.)

Fox’s speed and ability to get his shot off against any defense put him at another level as an offensive fulcrum. Sabonis shares that role and leads the Kings in assists at almost eight per game — preposterous for a center, even in the age of Jokic. Advanced numbers peg Sabonis as most deserving of this final spot (barely over Sengun), but such numbers always favor rebound-gobbling bigs.

The Kings have flatlined when Sabonis plays without Fox. They have outscored opponents in the opposite scenarios, per Cleaning The Glass. Both Sabonis and Sengun are slight minuses on defense, and Sengun’s work on that end has waned a little over the last month — not surprising given what he does for Houston on offense. (Sabonis is a little underrated on defense despite his lack of rim protection. Rebounding, size, effort and smart feet can get you pretty far.) Fox has improved on defense.