Damian Lillard found out last week that he had made his fourth All-Star team. Now he knows which team he’s suiting up for.
For the second-straight year, the NBA had the top two vote-getters from each conference, in this case, LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo, draft their teams rather than breaking up the teams by conference. The eight players who received the most votes from fans, players and media earn the right to start the All-Star Game, and thus, are selected first. After that, the draft moves to players who were selected for the midseason exhibition by coaches vote.
And with the sixth pick of the non-starters round and the 14th pick overall, James selected Lillard for his team while tapping his wrist and repeating Lillard's now-famous "You know what time it is" tagline. Lillard was selected after the Khris Middleton, Anthony Davis, Nikola Jokic, Klay Thompson and Ben Simmons and ahead of Blake Griffin, Russell Westbrook, D’Angelo Russell, LaMarcus Aldridge, Nikola Vucevic, Karl-Anthony Towns, Kyle Lowry and Bradley Beal.
After the draft, James traded Westbrook for Simmons, a fellow Klutch Sports client, so Lillard will team up with both James and Simmons, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Davis, Thompson, Aldridge, Towns, Beal and Dwyane Wade, who was a “special selection” along with Dirk Nowitzki, with the remainder of the players making up Antetokounmpo’s team.
In last year’s All-Star Game, Lillard played for Stephen Curry’s team and finished with 21 points on 9-of-14 shooting, three rebounds and two assists in just under 21 minutes.
The 2019 NBA All-Star Game will be held on February 17 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, NC.