2023 NBA All-Star Game roster announcement: Joel Embiid, Ja Morant lead list of reserve selections

The All-Star Teams will be drafted on the Sunday of the game

By Sam Quinn

Feb 2, 2023 at 7:29 pm ET • 2 min read

Getty Images

The NBA's marquee regular-season showcase officially has its pool of players. On Thursday, the NBA announced the 14 reserves who will be joining the 10 starters in Salt Lake City for the 2023 All-Star Game later this month. The coaches from each conference picked two guards, three front-court players and two wildcards for the honor. Those players will be put in the draft pool to be selected by captains LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo on the day of the All-Star Game.

	Eastern Conference	Western Conference
Guard	Jrue Holiday	Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Guard	Jaylen Brown	Ja Morant
Frontcourt	Joel Embiid	Domantas Sabonis
Frontcourt	Julius Randle	Lauri Markkanen
Frontcourt	Bam Adebayo	Jaren Jackson Jr.
Wildcard	DeMar DeRozan	Damian Lillard
Wildcard	Tyrese Haliburton	Paul George

Those 14 players will be joined by the following 10 starters to give us our official 24-man All-Star pool.

	Eastern Conference	Western Conference
Guard	Kyrie Irving	Stephen Curry
Guard	Donovan Mitchell	Luka Doncic
Frontcourt	Kevin Durant	LeBron James
Frontcourt	Jayson Tatum	Zion Williamson
Frontcourt	Giannis Antetokounmpo	Nikola Jokic

Haliburton is the only first-time selection in the Eastern Conference, but there are a few other interesting nuggets in the field. Holiday, for example, is notable for being forced to wait a full decade between his first All-Star selection, which came in 2013 as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, and his second, which comes in 2023 as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks (Holiday and Antetokounmpo), Nets (Durant and Irving) and Celtics (Tatum and Brown) are the only Eastern Conference teams to produce multiple All-Stars this season.

The Western Conference features a few more fresh faces. Jackson, Gilgeous-Alexander and Markkanen will all play in their first All-Star Game, while Morant is in his second and Sabonis is in his third. George and Lillard have both been here plenty, so there's a bit of experience in the conference to balance out the youth. The Grizzlies, currently sitting in the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, are the only team with multiple All-Stars (Morant and Jackson).

Just because we've named 24 All-Stars does not mean that the rosters are officially complete yet. It is unclear whether or not players like Durant and Williamson will be healthy enough to play, and injuries up until All-Star Weekend could force a new face or two into the mix. If injury replacements are necessary, they are named by the commissioner, Adam Silver.

In previous seasons, the two captains (James and Antetokounmpo) would be drafting from this pool of players well in advance of the All-Star Game. This season's tweak will have them selecting their rosters on the day of the All-Star Game itself. We don't yet know who each of them will pick, but we at least know which players they'll be able to choose from.