2019 NBA All Star Game – How They Were Acquired

NBA All Star game 2019 is this Sunday. 27 players were named to this year’s team, which includes one injury replacement and two ceremonial legend inclusions.

It’s always fascinating to see the path that players took to get to the All Star game. I dive into the draft summary of when each player was drafted and how they were acquired by their current teams.

For context, here’s how these numbers compare to the 2018 All Star rosters

Draft Summary (out of 27 players)

#1 overall draft picks – 6

Lebron James, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, Ben Simmons, Blake Griffin

From December – ranking active #1 overall picks

#2 picks – 4

Kevin Durant, Victor Oladipo, D’Angelo Russell, LaMarcus Aldridge

#3 picks – 3

Bradley Beal, James Harden, Joel Embiid

Top 5 picks – 15

Above 13 plus Russell Westbrook, Dwayne Wade

Top 10 picks – 20

Above 15 plus Kemba Walker, Dirk Nowitzki, Steph Curry, Damian Lillard, Paul George

21 Lottery picks

Above 20 plus Klay Thompson

25 First round picks

21 lottery plus Kawhi Leonard, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyle Lowry, Nikola Vucevic

2 Second round picks

Khris Middleton, Nikola Jokic

How Each Player was Acquired

14 drafted by current team

Walker, Giannis, Embiid, Beal, Simmons, Wade*, Curry, Westbrook, Lillard, Thompson, Davis, Jokic, Towns, Nowitzki

3 signed as free agents

Lebron, Durant, Aldridge

10 acquired via trade

• Irving (from Cleveland for Isaiah Thomas)
• Leonard (from San Antonio for Demar Derozan)
• Lowry (from Houston for a draft pick)
• Oladipo (from OKC for Paul George)
• Middleton (from Detroit for Brandon Jennings)
• Griffin (from LAC for Tobias Harris)
• Vucevic (from Philly in four team trade involving Dwight Howard)
• Russell (from Lakers for cap relief and Kyle Kuzma)
• Harden (from OKC for Kevin Martin and Jeremy Lamb plus picks)
• George (from Indiana for Oladipo)

This year’s all star game features Team Lebron vs Team Giannis, or in other words Team Tampering vs Team Wingspan

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