Courtesy of NBA.com

All-Star selections are something no one seems to agree on entirely, so I’m not going to bore you by driveling on about why my picks are: I’m simply going to present them, providing short concise credentials for starters only. Before I begin however please decide whether you’d either hear me out or leave a passive aggressive comment by reading my reasoning as to WHY KEVIN DURANT IS NOT A STARTER which is as follows:

The three front-court players I selected over him have all played more games, are averaging more PPG, and their teams all have more wins. It’s as simple as that.

Now that we have that out of the way, I present my choices for the 2023 Eastern Conference All Star team:

Back-Court Starters

1. Donovan Mitchell

Courtesy of NBA.com

28.3 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 4.8 APG, 1.5 SPG

• Feel-Good Story of 2023 seasons as he leads 5th place Cleveland Cavaliers 
• Leads all Eastern Conference guards in PPG
• One of most dynamic & talented scorers in league
• Multiple dominating performances including career high 71
• Three level scorer 

2. Jaylen Brown

Courtesy of nytimes.com

26.9 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 3.3 APG

• Star 1B on NBA team with most wins at the break
• Elite two-way player 
•  Likely only two-way guard in EC to make All-Star team
• 3rd among EC guards in PPG – lower usage rate than both players
• 1st among EC guards in rebounds; 2nd in NBA behind Luka
• Three level scorer

Front-Court Players (Simply numbered and ordered by position they’d play)

3. Jayson Tatum

Courtesy of Masslive.com

31 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 4.4 APG

• Best Player on team with best record
• 2nd in EC in PPG and 3rd in NBA
• Elite two-way player
• Leads small forwards in RPG
• Three-level scorer

4. Giannis Antetokounmpo

30.9 PPG, 11.6 RPG, 5.4 APG

• 4th in NBA in PPG
• 2nd in RPG
• Unquestionably the best two-way player in the NBA
• Perennial DPOY candidate 
• One man wrecking machine & all-encompassing offensive engine

5. Joel Embiid

Courtesy of CNN.com

33.6 PPG, 9.8 RPG, 4.2 APG, 1.7 BPG

• Unquestionably 2nd best center in NBA
• 2nd in PPG in NBA
• 6th in BPG
• Best player right now on 2nd place team in EC
• Elite rim protector and Dominating offensive force

Reserves

2 guards & 3 front-court I feel were the runner-ups at this point

Guards

6. James Harden & 7. Kyrie Irving

Front-Court

8. Kevin Durant

9. Julius Randle

10. Pascal Siakam

2 Wild Cards

11. Tyrese Haliburton

12. DeMar DeRozan