The 2024-25 NBA All-Star starters will be announced Thursday night, and for my money, there are four locks to earn one of the 10 spots: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, the league’s two leading MVP candidates, in the West, and Giannis Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum in the East. 

After that, there are some very interesting cases to hear. 

The NBA is changing the All-Star Game format in 2025 after a lackluster, no-defense exhibition in 2024. The new format will see the 24 All-Stars split among three eight-player teams, and they’ll play a mini tournament with the winning team from the Rising Stars challenge also receiving a spot. So while these 10 players won’t line up first in the All-Star Game, the league is still honoring 10 players as starters.

A reminder on how the selection process works: Fan votes make up 50% of the vote, while the votes of current NBA players and a media panel account for 25% apiece, with the result coming in the weighted average of those rankings. In each conference, there will be two guards and three frontcourt players as starters. Here is how the fan vote looked last week:

With all that in mind, below are my All-Star starter predictions. This is not necessarily who I believe should be named an All-Star starter, but who I think will be. 

Western Conference

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder

This doesn’t even qualify as a prediction. SGA is a lock to earn his first All-Star starter spot, and third selection overall as the league’s leading scorer (tied with Giannis) and the betting favorite for MVP. 

Stephen Curry, Warriors

This is where I need to remind you that this is a prediction of which players I think will be named All-Star starters, not necessarily which players I think deserve to be named All-Star starters. Curry is not having a better year than Anthony Edwards or Luka Doncic, but he’s second in fan voting among West guards and is having a good enough season for to justify enough of the media/player vote to secure the spot, especially with the time Luka has missed and the fact that Edwards finished fifth in fan voting. 

If the game wasn’t in San Francisco, I would probably bet on Edwards getting the second guard spot. But I don’t think the media and/or players have the stones to downgrade Curry enough to cost his a starter spot on his home court. Remember, for as bad as the Warriors have been, Curry still carries them to a plus-4.4 net rating and what would register as a top-five offensive ranking when he’s on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass. 

LeBron James, Lakers

Much like Curry, this is going to be a lifetime-achievement nod for LeBron, who is second in frontcourt fan votes and, like Curry, having a good enough season to give the media and players all the ammunition they need to not drop James too far on their ballot to offset the fans, which nobody wants to do given that he’s started a record 20 straight All-Star games. Would you want to be the one to break that streak when LeBron is still playing at such a high level?

LeBron, at 40 years old, is one of just two players averaging at least 23 points, nine assists and seven rebounds. The other is Nikola Jokic. The Lakers are a top-six team. I think that’s enough, even though Kevin Durant, who has missed the most time of all the qualified frontcourt candidates, and LeBron’s teammate, Anthony Davis, are probably having better seasons. 

Nikola Jokic, Nuggets

Jokic isn’t the leading MVP candidate but he should be. He’s the best player in the world and he’s having the best season of his career, as crazy as that is to say about a three-time MVP winner. He’s a lock to be named an All-Star starter. 

Victor Wembanyama, Spurs

This last frontcourt spot could go a few different ways. With Jokic being a front-court lock, that leaves four realistic options for the other two spot. I gave one to LeBron, though it definitely wouldn’t be shocking if his Lakers’ teammate Davis got that spot. Either way, two Lakers are not starting. That leaves Durant and Victor Wembanyama, and I’m going with the Wemby. 

Wemabanyama is fourth to Durant’s third in fan voting, but I can’t see any way the media doesn’t make him the No. 2 frontcourt guy behind Jokic. That will bring it down to the players. It’ll be tight. 

Durant will have a the inside track because of the fan vote, but I don’t see how the players and media don’t do the right thing and give the nod to the guy who is — barring injury — a lock to win Defensive Player of the Year while putting up huge offensive numbers as well. That’s while leading the Spurs, to this point, to the second-biggest win turnaround from last season, trailing only the Pistons. 

Eastern Conference

Jalen Brunson, Knicks

Both guard spots in the East are up for grabs. If it was on merit, Brunson would be a lock, but he finished fourth in the fan vote behind LaMelo Ball, Donovan Mitchell and Damian Lillard. Ball is the wild card here; it’s no lock that he’ll get any media votes. Nobody really know how seriously to take his numbers. Is he a superstar or a carnival act or somewhere in the middle? That will factor heavily into whether Brunson can jump Ball as a starter. 

From ESPN:

The NBA treats all players who don’t get media votes as finishing tied for the next spot after the players who do get them. If, for example, the media votes go exclusively to Donovan Mitchell and Brunson, that would put Ball third. In that scenario, Ball would need to finish five spots below Brunson in player voting to get pushed out of the starting lineup.

By contrast, if a handful of different guards get votes from the media and Ball does not, it becomes more reasonable for Brunson to leap him thanks to media voting.

Based on that, I think Brunson jumps Ball, because I do think Ball will get shut out of media votes while a few different players split the player vote given all the credible candidates, notably Lillard, Trae Young and Darius Garland in addition to Mitchell and Brunson. 

There’s just no way you can justify voting for Ball over Brunson. Given that the numbers are close enough, Brunson’s legit MVP-level impact on what is obviously a much better team should carry enough weight with media and players to get him the nod. 

Donovan Mitchell, Cavaliers

Darius Garland is probably having a better season than Mitchell, but Mitchell is seen as the guy who leads the Cavs, the best team in the league so far, and he’s second in fan voting. Mitchell is having a terrific year in his own right, scoring over 23 a night on 40% 3-point shooting. 

The snubs in this spot will be Trae Young, who is passing out of his mind but having a pretty awful shooting season, Damian Lillard (no way the Bucks get rewarded with two starters), and of course Garland and Ball. Persaonlly, I wouldn’t say either East backcourt spot is secured, but Mitchell is the best bet to get one of them because of his fan vote and Cleveland dominance so far. 

Jayson Tatum, Celtics

The league’s sixth-leading scorer, Tatum is posting career highs in rebounding and assists. It hasn’t been his most efficient shooting season, but he’s been by far Boston’s best player and you can bet Boston is getting an All-Star starter. Tatum is a lock. 

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bucks

Last season, Giannis became the only player in history to average 30 points on 60% shooting. He’s doing it again this year. It goes without saying he is also an All-Star starter lock. 

Karl-Anthony Towns, Knicks

On merit, there’s a case for Evan Mobley here given his defensive dominance and significant offensive strides. But Towns, who is way ahead in the fan vote and honestly deserves fringe MVP consideration, turned the Knicks into an offensive juggernaut the minute he showed up. 

Towns is averaging 25 a night and the league’s second-leading rebounder with almost 14 per game. He’s shooting 43% from 3. He has had some spectacular offensive seasons, but this is the best he’s ever looked in terms of all the different ways he’s terrorizing defenses — as a shooter, in the post, and putting the ball on the floor. He deserves a starting spot, and again, the third-place finish in the fan vote makes it likely that’ll happen.