NBA games of the week: All-Star Starters

The latest edition of the NBA games of the week is brought to you by the NBA All-Star game.

The NBA All-Star game, and All-Star games in general, have always confounded me. On the one hand, it’s an exhibition. A congregation of the agreed-upon world’s best talents. A type of game where you can see Peyton Manning throw a deep pass to Randy Moss, or Kevin Durant throw Russell Westbrook an alley-oop. It’s fantasy come to life. It’s fun.

On the other, the game doesn’t matter, and here’s where my confounding comes in, especially with the NBA All-Star game. Everyone agrees the All-Star game starters is a popularity contest. That when a player is voted into the All-Star game as a starter, it’s sometimes a testament to how many fans love that player. And everyone agrees the players are awful measures of talent by way of All-Star voting. Langston Galloway, Cameron Payne, Derrick Jones Jr. and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot all received a vote in the player poll — I wonder who voted for them.

There’s a yearly struggle among the likes of media and NBA Twitter. We understand the game doesn’t matter, and we understand it’s a popularity contest mostly, and we understand the positional guides are broken considering the league has all but evolved beyond the two guards, two forwards and one center lineup. And yet, that still doesn’t stop anyone from listing their starters and then bracing themselves for the subsequent onslaught from slighted fanbases. Perhaps that’s why Zach Lowe bowed out from submitting a ballot.

It’s madness. But, even if I don’t get involved in the hoopla of the NBA All-Star game starters because no one knows how many All-Star games Kobe Bryant started, but can rattle off that he was in 18 over his career, I respect it if you do. So here are the games of the week, dedicated to the 2018 NBA All-Star starters.