Kevin Durant Ruled Out for NBA All-Star 2021 But Still Captain

The NBA All-Star Game 2021 is just around the corner and we have big news coming out, as East captain Kevin Durant will have to miss the game due to injury but has confirmed that he will still serve as team’s captain and will pick his players on March 4th, along with LeBron James, captain for the West.

Durant has been sidelined for quite a few games now, out of the Brooklyn Nets’ lineup due to a hamstring injury, and he recently confirmed he can’t and will not be available for the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday, March 7th, in Atlanta.

However, Durant was the most voted player by fans in all the Eastern Conference, and second only to LeBron James in the whole league, and as top voted player, he intends to respect the process and the fans, and do what he can to honor the results. There is still no confirmation on whether Durant will attend the All-Star Game on Sunday or not, but he will pick his team and face LeBron James on March 4th on the All-Star Draft, where each of them, as captains, will be picking their teammates one by one, out of the eight other starters as well as the reserve players that were selected by the coaches.

NBA All-Star 2021 starters and reserves

For the Western Conference, according to the voting results, the starters are LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic and Steph Curry. As for the reserves selected originally, we have Paul George, Rudy Gobert, Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Chris Paul, Zion Williamson, and Anthony Davis.

However, Anthony Davis is out due to a calf injury, and he has missed a bunch of the Lakers last games. As his replacement, the league selected Devin Booker, someone who the fans were claiming for, just after the announcement was made that he hadn’t made the list. Even LeBron James tweeted about it, saying that he was “the most underrated player” in the whole league.

As for the Eastern conference, the voted starters were Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, Kyrie Irving, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Bradley Beal. The reserves that were originally selected were Jaylen Brown, James Harden, Zach Lavine, Ben Simmons, Julius Randle, Jayson Tatum, and Nikola Vucevic.

After learning that Kevin Durant could not play in the game at all, Jayson Tatum was “promoted” to the starting lineup, while Domantas Sabonis was selected to take the empty spot now in the reserves list.

There is one more catch to all this, we’re talking about starters and reserves, but in the end, everything will be decided in the draft, as the first 8 players to be drafted will be the ones that will start the game, regardless of if they were voted as starters or not, so that’s one more big responsibility for the captains, King James, and Durant.

All events in only one night for the NBA All-Star 2021

Remember that this year there will not be an All-Star Weekend as usual, due to Covid-19 safety reasons, but all events will take place on Sunday night, on March 7th. Skills competition and 3-Pint Contest will take place before the game, while the Slam Dunk Contest will take place during halftime of the ASG 2021.