Fans hoping for some new blood leading the NBA All-Star Game this year did not quite get their wish.
The NBA officially announced the 10 starters (five from each conference) for this year’s All-Star Game in San Francisco, Calif. They are Jalen Brunson, Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Karl-Anthony Towns (East) as well as Steph Curry, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Nikola Jokic (West).
Immediately though, social media users identified one major snub from the list of starters — San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama. Countless posts on X mentioned that Wembanyama had not been included.
No Wemby?! https://t.co/W6qW2zC0Kw
— Clark(@ClarKent_210) January 24, 2025
No Wemby is a crime. https://t.co/o8EGRHZnfo
— Marco (@marcos_midtakes) January 24, 2025
No wemby????
— Domo (@thatsdomo1) January 24, 2025
NO WEMBY???? what are we doing?????
— Nando (@nando17celtics) January 24, 2025
Wemby snubbed as a starter?
RIDICULOUS!
Watch for him to smoke all five starters the rest of this season. pic.twitter.com/Rmm6We16Ey
— Solis Digital Media (@stevesolisphoto) January 24, 2025
The 21-year-old Wembanyama might be the most exciting watch in the NBA right now and is submitting a stat line (24.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, and a league-high 4.0 blocks per game) that pushes the limits of what is humanly possible on a basketball court. He is also averaging 3.2 made threes a game at 7-foot-3 and has become the league’s single most feared defender in just his second NBA season.
Wembanyama was never going to make it in over the three-time Denver Nuggets MVP Jokic. But frontcourt voting is positionless, and plenty felt that Wembanyama should have gotten the honor over legacy players like James and Durant (though Wembanyama does admittedly have a worse team record than any of the actual West starters).
On the bright side for Wembanyama, he is still highly likely to make it into the All-Star Game as a reserve selected by coaches. But All-Star voting (of which fan ballots account for 50 percent, player ballots 25 percent, and media ballots 25 percent) featured multiple whiffs this year, and Wembanyama’s snub was just another one to add to the list.
