{"id":123862,"date":"2025-02-15T14:35:57","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T19:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=123862"},"modified":"2025-02-15T14:35:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T19:35:57","slug":"nba-all-star-game-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/02\/15\/nba-all-star-game-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA All-Star Game a Prequel to Los Angeles 2028 Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking at the NBA All-Star rosters<\/a>, it is clear that the NBA went out of its way to create three completely different rosters. Shaquille O\u2019Neal<\/a> chose all the veterans, Kenny Smith<\/a> went with the young stars, and Charles Barkley<\/a> went with the international stars. One might say that the NBA All-Star game between Kenny and Chuck\u2019s teams will be a prequel to what happens in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n

NBA All-Star Game a Prequel to Los Angeles 2028 Olympics<\/h2>\n

The 2024 Paris Olympics were likely the last one for LeBron James<\/a>, Kevin Durant, <\/a>and Steph Curry. <\/a>KD hinted<\/a> that he would love to play in Los Angeles if he can, but all things considered, it is time for the US basketball team to get younger. Young stars have to contribute more to the US basketball program, and they will get a chance at the All-Star weekend to see how they fare against international competition.<\/p>\n

The game will be played according to NBA rules, which are a lot different from international rules. Of course, all of these international players on the All-Star team<\/a> come from different countries. But what fans might look to see is how these young players will go against international competition. Many of the players on Kenny\u2019s team will be asked to carry the USA basketball team to the gold medal in Los Angeles in 2028.<\/p>\n

Projecting All-Stars on the Los Angeles 2028 Team<\/h3>\n

All things considered, Kenny might have six players who can make the 2028 Los Angeles Roster. Anthony Edwards<\/a> is already part of the US basketball program, and Jalen Brunson<\/a> played in the World Cup. The US will need big men like Jaren Jackson Jr<\/a> and Evan Mobley<\/a>, and then we have guards like Cade Cunningham<\/a>. Jalen Williams<\/a> is a Swiss army knife player who will probably make the US Olympic team at some point. Think of him as the Derrick White<\/a> of the 2024 team. Ant will be in the spotlight for sure. Fans, coaches, and everyone in between expect Ant to be the next big star to lead the USA basketball team to glory. He couldn\u2019t deliver at the World Cup in 2023 but played well at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

Desperate Move to Get Players to Compete?<\/h3>\n

We can look at the semi-final between Kenny and Chuck\u2019s team as a desperate move by the NBA to encourage players to be more competitive. Their reputation is on the line in this one, and the American players should definitely bring their A-game.<\/p>\n

The international team by Chuck has two of the most competitive players even in an All-Star<\/a> setting: Victor Wembanyama<\/a>\u00a0and Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a>. Sadly, Giannis will miss the game<\/a> due to injury, but we all remember how competitive Wemby was last year during the Skills Challenge. Expect him to try and go get it this time.<\/p>\n

Kenny\u2019s team will go against three of the biggest competitors to the USA for the 2028 Olympic gold. Nikola Jokic<\/a> and Serbia almost beat the Americans in Paris. Wemby\u2019s France made the game competitive to the last second. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> and Canada didn\u2019t play the Americans in Paris, but they beat them at the World Cup in 2023. All three of them will probably be back in 2028 for another round. This is the chance young Americans have to prove they can compete with the biggest international stars.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Photo credit: \u00a9 Scott Wachter-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looking at the NBA All-Star rosters, it is clear that the NBA went out of its way to create three completely different rosters. Shaquille O\u2019Neal chose all the veterans, Kenny Smith went with the young stars, and Charles Barkley went with the international stars. One might say that the NBA All-Star game between Kenny and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5291,"featured_media":123895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,10,21,62,22,34],"tags":[2109,3965,3966,1417,4609,69,38,72,4669],"class_list":["post-123862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-pistons","category-timberwolves","category-nba","category-thunder","category-spurs","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-evan-mobley","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-jalen-williams","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lebron-james","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123896,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123862\/revisions\/123896"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}