NBA All Star Locks
The Athletic NBA Daily
The Athletic
4.1 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
Dave DuFour, Zena Keita and Es Baraheni discuss their All Star picks for the Western and Eastern Conferences including who should be All Star locks, and who is on the fringes. They make their case for players like Scottie Barnes, Devin Booker and more.
Host: Dave DuFour
With: Es Baraheni, Zena Keita
Producer: Andrew Schlecht
Video/Audio Producer: Alex Oliver
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily. |
| 0:10.7 | I'm Dave Dufour here with Esperi, Zena Keda. |
| 0:14.2 | We're still in Vegas for the NBA Cup, which by now you know what's happened. |
| 0:19.6 | But we're recording this ahead of time. |
| 0:21.9 | We're talking All-Stars. |
| 0:23.5 | Our two early All-Stars to celebrate the opening of All-Star voting. |
| 0:29.8 | Before we jump into our teams, I do want to talk LeBron James in what is not an All-Star season. |
| 0:37.2 | As one does. Yeah. Because this is, I mean, it's not going to be his last year. I don't think. I assume we would know ahead of time. But he missed a significant chunk of the start of the season. And so there's no way you can say what he's done on the court puts him in the all-star category period he's going to get in |
| 0:55.0 | fan votes i don't think these guys is going to get but none of us had them on our list as an |
| 1:00.3 | all-star i mean like there's just yeah no argument there whatsoever like how could you i didn't have |
| 1:05.1 | him on my list as a i guess you could say credible right right right but i had him on my list from the |
| 1:10.8 | sheer factor that the NBA is not going to have an all-star without him, especially at this point of his career and the fact that they're consistently changing things each year. They need some sort of constant. And LeBron James is an All-Star, I think, provides you. And it's in L.A. And it's in L.A. And it's a fan game. So like that in mind, guys, let's let's talk about our Western All-Stars. We know LeBron's going to be there. Yeah. But I want to talk first about the locks. Like the players that we just agree on, the unanimous selections, and it's probably the majority of this team because it's pretty obvious. Shea Gillers is Alexander, front runner for MVP, obviously, Nicola Yokic. |
| 1:48.1 | Yep. |
| 1:48.6 | I think Victor Wimbunyama. |
| 1:51.1 | Yep, absolutely. |
| 1:52.1 | Luca Donchich, who just, I think he just scored another 40 points. |
| 1:56.8 | Steph Curry. |
| 1:57.7 | Yes. |
| 1:58.4 | Yes. |
| 1:58.9 | Who, again, another 40-point game from him. With a loss. Most, most over Michael Jordan, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anthony Edwards. Yes. Unanimous selection there. Uh, Alperin Shingoon. You name. Yes. Yeah. Again, we're, we're on a here. Kevin Durant durant yep they get two they they do get two um and |
| 2:21.0 | jamaul murray i don't know if he's a lock he's not a lock but he is we all unanimous |
| 2:26.5 | selection here i mean this is and again one of the things we talked about coming into the season |
... |
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