All-Star Game playground edition

The NBA regular season is still far from the beginning but the NBA management is already thinking about the All-Star Game. Yesterday night In a joint release, the NBA and National Basketball Players Association announced major changes for the 2018 All-Star Game, highlighted by captain-chosen rosters instead of the traditional format of Eastern Conference vs. Western Conference.

Following an offseason during which the Western Conference grew stronger—and the disparity between the league's two halves did the same—not to mention years upon years of the league's midseason exhibition losing its luster—the Association has taken a step in the right direction. We summarized here the major changes of the new format:

• The leading vote-getters in each conference will be team captains
• Team captains will choose their own rosters, one-by-one, starting with the remaining eight players voted in as starters
• Team captains will then draft the rest of the players, all of whom were voted in as reserves
• There will be 12 total players voted in from each conference
• The two teams will be playing for charity

Obviously, the captain's rule is the most important innovation for the All-Star Game, and it could spark dynamics and team similar to what happens in every playground of the world: the two best players select the teammates on sympathy, the embarrassment of being the last pick of the teams or when you cannot pick that guy because is your best friend's enemy. So we imagined how the two captains - most likely LeBron James and Stephen Curry - could choose their teams.

The Lebron James' Fam

We all know that LeBron is a family guy, he likes to hang out just with his homies. So his first call would have been surely his second-in-chief, his brother Dwayne Wade. But unfortunately his bro-love was not selected by the audience for the game, so the King goes for his second-best friend Chris Paul. After him - in order to avoid a possible offense - he selects the other original homie Carmelo Anthony, which in the meantime was able to modify the NBA super strict rules and now he is playing with the hoodie every game (and so ruling the League). The fourth choice was kinda obligated: Russel Westbrook is still sitting on a bench, Curry could not select him because Durant is afraid of his reactions. The three homies are happy, even if having Russ in the squad is like having that super strong and crazy guy of the playground. For the last pick, CP3 noted that the team is more offensive than Zeman's Pescara so he suggested to the King to pick a good defender: among all the players standing and hoping for a call, he spots Jimmy Butler punching seriously Joakim Noah. That is the fifth man.

The Freak Show Team

On the other side there are KD and Step keeping their narrative of nerdy guys that are taking over the high school from the cool kids, but "hey I'm closer to you than you think". So in order to continue this attitude, the first selection is obviously the nerdiest talent of Boston: Kyrie Irving, gathered together by the hate against LeBron, we are pretty sure they are going to have some problems of egocentrism in the team (or heliocentrism?). For the third pick, Curry wants another freak from the high school, but that can play some defense. So while he was looking for Draymond, he noted Kawhi Leonard competing with Tim Duncan in a zombie-face competition. Perfect for the team. Now the squad looks like a cast from a Netflix serie about consequences of a nuclear disaster, so to raise the awkwardness of the team the natural choice was obviously the great Greek Freak Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The 2018 NBA All-Star Game will take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 18. Start the countdown!