Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
Health is mostly to blame, but Anthony Davis hasn’t appeared in an All-Star Game since 2021. His production and availability this season will remedy that.
AD’s best game of the year won’t even count toward his All-Star credentials, as his 40-point, 20-rebound, five-assist, four-block effort in the In-Season Tournament Final disappeared into the ether. If that statistical explosion had come during a regular-season game, it would have been the first of its kind produced by a Los Angeles Laker in over 50 years.
Davis has a case as this season’s best rim-protector, as he’s holding opponents to 49.8. percent shooting on 8.4 close-range attempts per game. Per Cleaning the Glass, he drives down opponent accuracy at the cup by 10.3 percentage points, a figure that ranks in the 99th percentile among bigs.
The league leader in rebounds per game, Davis is on pace to finish the season averaging over 24.0 points, 12.0 boards, 3.0 assists and 2.0 blocks—something no one has done since 2003-04…except for the time AD did it in 2018-19.
Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns
Surprisingly the healthiest of the Phoenix Suns’ three stars, Kevin Durant has spent a significant chunk of 2023-24 carrying a squad populated by minimum signings and castoffs to a respectable record. Despite tough conditions and a consistent lack of help, he’s up over 30.0 points per game for the first time since he led the league in scoring during the 2013-14 campaign.
He also hasn’t lost a step from an efficiency standpoint, even if he’s doing things a little differently this season.
We should expect Durant to quit making 46.7 percent of his threes at some point, but any dropoff there will be offset by an inevitable spike in mid-range accuracy. KD hasn’t been this errant on his pet two-point jumpers in a decade, so you know positive regression is coming.
Still a bucket of the highest order, still an underrated defender and still the face you see under “matchup nightmare” in the dictionary, KD cannot be left off the All-Star roster. This’ll be his 14th appearance, which will tie him with Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Dirk Nowitzki and Jerry West for fifth-most all time.
Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder
The counting stats don’t scream All-Star, but Chet Holmgren is much more than his fairly pedestrian averages of 16.9 points and 8.0 rebounds per game. For one thing, he’s the Western Conference leader in Defensive Estimated Plus/Minus. For another, his 4.5 percent block rate, which ranks in the 96th percentile among bigs, is part of a rim-protection package that rates among the very best in the league.
Joel Embiid is the only player contesting more shots at the rim per game, and Holmgren is holding opponents to close-range conversion rates lower than every high-volume (at least 7.0 contests per game) paint protector not named Embiid, Anthony Davis or Rudy Gobert.
Though his three-point shooting has cooled since a scorching start, Holmgren is still one of only three players in the league with at least 70 blocks and 30 made triples. The others are Brook Lopez and Victor Wembanyama, and Holmgren smokes both of them in both true shooting percentage. Minor upticks in a couple of stat categories could see the OKC rookie lead the league in blocked shots while posting a 50-40-90 shooting split.
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