2022 NBA All-Star Game Preview
2022 NBA All-Star Game: How to watch online
- Date: Sunday, Feb. 20 | Time: 8 p.m. ET
- Location: Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse -- Cleveland, Ohio
- TV: TNT | Live stream: TNT app
- Odds: Team LeBron - 5.5 | Over/Under: 321.5
This is the All-Star Game so both rosters are great, but you have to go with Team LeBron here. LeBron is arguably the best player of all-time, Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo are leading MVP candidates and DeMar DeRozan came into the break on a historic scoring run that even Wilt Chamberlain couldn't match. They're so stacked that Luka Doncic isn't even in the starting lineup. Pick: Team LeBron
Team Durant +180 | Team LeBron -220 | O/U 321.5 | Spread: LeBron -5.5/Durant +5.5
Pick: Team Durant +5.5. Picking against Team LeBron feels a tad irresponsible. He's undefeated in the All-Star Draft era. His team, on paper, is substantially better than the one Kevin Durant drafted. Durant himself isn't even playing. If these two rosters played a seven-game series with genuine stakes, I have little doubt that Team LeBron would win with minimal difficulty.
But this isn't a seven-game series. It's a largely uncompetitive exhibition game being played between two teams filled with the NBA's best players. That creates a high-variance environment that makes giving six points an enormous risk. Even if Team LeBron has won the last four All-Star Games, it has covered a six-point spread only twice. Look at it this way: we can broadly say, given how little effort tends to be exerted for most of this game, that this game has four possible outcomes that have relatively even odds of becoming reality. If Team LeBron wins in a blowout, so be it. But if Team Durant wins in a blowout, Team Durant wins a close game or Team LeBron wins in a close game, you're winning this bet. I like those odds.
All-Star Game MVP
Giannis Antetokounmpo +400
Joel Embiid +550
LeBron James +600
Stephen Curry +800
Ja Morant +850
Luka Doncic +1500
Nikola Jokic +1500
DeMar DeRozan +1600
Jayson Tatum +2000
Devin Booker +2500
Trae Young +2500
LaMelo Ball +2500
Chris Paul +3000
Darius Garland +3000
Jimmy Butler +3000
Donovan Mitchell +3000
Fred VanVleet +4000
Andrew Wiggins +5000
Zach LaVine +5000
Pick: Giannis Antetokounmpo (+400). Antetokounmpo has only won All-Star MVP once, but based on his numbers, it would almost be irresponsible not to bet on him. Over his past three All-Star Games, he's averaged 32.7 points on 75 percent shooting with just under 10 rebounds and four assists. As a reminder… this is the All-Star Game. Nobody plays enough minutes to average numbers like that. Giannis does it because, well, it's the All-Star Game. Think of how easy he makes actual NBA games with his length and athleticism. In games without maximum defensive effort, he's going to rack up easy dunks all night long.
All-Star Game MVP Sleeper
Pick: Nikola Jokic (+1500). That leaves us with seven possible candidates. We've covered Antetokounmpo already. All-Star Games offer him similarly fertile territory. There will be easy dunks aplenty for him. Given the quality of his teammates and the lackadaisical defense his opponents will be playing, he'll also surely wind up with a couple of highlight assists. There's some danger here with Joel Embiid defending him. Given their status as the two MVP frontrunners, Embiid might want to prove a point by playing Jokic hard in the All-Star Game. But the value here is absolutely insane. Jokic might be the best player in the NBA and his game is tailor-made for an All-Star setting.
