It was the event of the night, although erased hours later by the Hawks’ all-time defense. After cleaning up our vomit, here we are back for an ode to four players who will discover the joys of their first All-Star Game next Sunday. One word to sum it all up? Deserved.
Also find to complete your game of the seven families:
- Holders in the East
- The replacements in the East
- Incumbents in the West
- Replacements in the West
- The great forgotten
They are therefore four. They will be four, four to tread boards as All-Star for the first time in their career. Three in the east, one in the west, un figure that could have doubled on the left side if De’Aaron Fox, Ja Morant, Mike Conley, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander or Jordan Poole had offered an envelope to two or three coaches but we will stick to these four new ones: Julius Randle, Jaylen Brown, Zach LaVine and Zion Williamson. Four gifts to four guys who deserve it, so much so, for example, that for a very long time Jaylen Brown was tipped to be among the holders in the East.
Jaylen? An exceptional two-way player, the back of Boston has this year taken on such a dimension that he is no longer just the lieutenant of Jayson Tatum but the co-leader of the Celtics, one of his two best attackers. and one of his two best defenders, all while offering a game of crazy cleanliness that is found in stats in career high mode that make him one of the favorites in the race for the trophy of MIP after posing a start to the season of… MVP. Julius Randle? Transfigured since the arrival in New York of druid Tom Thibodeau, the former Laker and Pelican is today one of the most effective point forward in the League and has become an outstanding distributor while remaining a striker. as efficient as it is powerful to have the best season of his career while… winning the Knicks again. And just for that it is not an All-Star Game that must be offered to Julius, it is a statue in front of Madison Square Garden.
Third thief of the East … Zach LaVine, whose ratings have skyrocketed in recent weeks no but you surprise me. Big boss Bulls who casually win their share of matches and who remain in the race for the Playoffs in the East, Zach is this season one of the most productive snipers in the League but also one of the most skillful, thanks to an incredible confidence which often results in maddening temperature rises at the end of the match. Zach LaVine plays fair, plays well, in short Zach LaVine deserves a thousand times what happens to him, seven years after giving the whole world a legendary pout during his draft by the Wolves. Zach deserves, just like Zion deserves, and if you’ve seen the Pelicans play more than twice this season you’d have to agree with that. Spoiler alert the first pick of the Draft 2019 is not a simple fairground phenomenon but a real basketball player, able to be swift like a star dancer while being powerful like a backhoe loader with which one would have filled the vodka-Red tank Bull.
Four lucky winners, four men who will be the virgins of the band next Sunday in Atlanta. Reward for a resplendent first part of the season but not an end in itself and we will therefore necessarily follow the rest of the events for players who, automatically, have just changed status. But for the time that they are enjoying next weekend, that too they have well deserved.
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