Day: February 14, 2025

The NBA and NBPA will address players before Sunday’s All-Star Game to emphasize the importance of making the event a competitive one. Recent iterations of the All-Star Game have had a tangible dearth of defense.

Before last year’s game in Indianapolis, Larry Bird called on players to “play hard.” The league had also hoped reverting back to the East vs. West format would help improve upon the 2023 edition. Despite the urgings from the league and the timing of ongoing national media rights negotiations, the game was widely panned.

Sunday’s game will be held in San Francisco and feature four teams competing in a semifinal round and then a final.

When the Golden State Warriors were considering a trade for Kevin Durant ahead of the trade deadline, Stephen Curry spoke directly to his former teammate to gauge how he felt about leaving the Phoenix Suns for a reunion. Sources told ESPN that Durant indicated to Curry that a return to the Warriors didn’t “feel right,” that it “wasn’t the time.”

“You need everybody to be all bought in no matter what the history you have,” Curry told ESPN about his talk with Durant. “And I respect KD. It’s all about having peace of mind and happiness.

“Neither one of us controlled that [trade] situation. It’s just you want to make sure somebody wants to be somewhere. Other than that, I’m not trying to convince anybody to be somewhere they don’t want to be.”

Curry said he has “no hard feelings, no resentment” at all.

“I don’t blame Kevin one bit for not wanting to rerun things here,” Steve Kerr told ESPN. “He took so much s— for like, ‘Oh, you’re jumping on the bandwagon’ [when he signed with Golden State as a free agent in 2016]. And then he’s Finals MVP two years in a row. It’s like he still gets criticized.

“So why would he want to face all that B.S. again?”

The Warriors believe they had an agreement in place with the Phoenix Suns to acquire Durant if he would have given the move his blessing. Golden State ultimately pivoted to a trade with the Miami Heat to acquire Jimmy Butler ahead of the trade deadline.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is ahead of Nikola Jokic in ESPN’s latest MVP straw poll. Gilgeous-Alexander received 70 first place votes and thirty second place votes. Jokic, who was first in the previous straw poll, received 30 first place votes, 69 second place votes and one third place vote. The two players are 122 points apart as the MVP race is now down to Gilgeous-Alexander and Jokic.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jayson Tatum and Donovan Mitchell round out the top-5. Antetokounmpo is the clear choice at No. 3, but he could be ineligible if he misses more than six more games this season.

Gilgeous-Alexander enters the All-Star break averaging 32.5 points, 5.1 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 1.9 steals in 34.0 minutes per game. Gilgeous-Alexander also has a PER of 31.0. The Oklahoma City Thunder have the best Net Rating in the NBA and are tied with the Cleveland Cavaliers for the best record at 44-10

Jokic is averaging 29.8 points, 12.6 rebounds, 10.2 assists and 1.8 steals in 36.0 minutes per game. After a slow start to the season, the Denver Nuggets are now 36-19 and in third place in the Western Conference.

Other players receiving votes include Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Victor Wembanyama, Jaren Jackson Jr., Anthony Edwards, LeBron James, Evan Mobley, Cade Cunningham and Alperen Sengun.