The NBA playground style All-Star draft took place Thursday night February 7, with OKC Thunder star Russell Westbrook becoming the first ever player traded in the process.
With the NBA trade deadline creating buzz the OKC Thunder sat idle on Thursday making no moves. However, the evening brought more action when All-Star captains LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo conducted a schoolyard type pick of the squads.
Sorry to throw shade right out of the gate, but the fact five of LeBron’s first six picks were all players who’ll enter free agency this summer can’t be a coincidence — right?
LeBron James got the first pick of the starters and repeated last year’s first pick with KD. Here’s his starting group followed by Giannis’ group in the order they were selected:
LeBron’s starter lineup selection:
Giannis starter lineup selection:
As for the reserves Giannis got to select first and stayed loyal by selecting his teammate Middleton. Here’s how their reserve picks went in order:
Giannis reserves lineup selection:
- Khris Middleton
- Nikola Jokic
- Ben Simmons (*see note – Russell Westbrook)
- Blake Griffin
- D’Angelo Russell
- Nikola Vucevic
- Kyle Lowry
- Dirk Nowitzki
LeBron’s reserves lineup selection:
- Anthony Davis
- Klay Thompson
- Damian Lillard
- Russell Westbrook (see note Ben Simmons)
- LaMarcus Aldridge
- Karl-Anthony Towns
- Bradley Beal
- Dwyane Wade (special player addition)
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*The next big moment came as LeBron asked Giannis if he would consider a trade and threw out Russell Westbrook to go join teammate Paul George and also to reacquaint him with Joel Embiid.
The latter was something Giannis said he might do in order to build the peace bridge between Russ and Joel following the last game when the two got very heated with each other.
LeBron asked for Ben Simmons in exchange and the duo joked around with the TNT panel who allowed the move.
Everyone agreed to the deal which now will go down in history as the first ever All-Star trade. As for teammates in the game with the trade Russ joins George along with their captain and his Bucks teammate Middleton.
The trade separates Embiid and Simmons while Leonard and Lowry are also on different squads and Steph is the lone Warrior on Team Antetokounmpo.
Last year teammates joked with Westbrook over him being selected last (he wasn’t) so it should be interesting to see how he deals with this news and how much ribbing he takes over the trade.