FOURTH 76ER EVER TO BE NAMED ALL-STAR STARTER AT LEAST FIVE TIMES
The NBA announced today that Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers was named an Eastern Conference starter for the 2022 NBA All-Star Game in Cleveland. It’s Embiid’s fifth consecutive All-Star selection after being named a starter in each of the past four seasons.
He’s the first 76ers player to be named a starter in at least five straight All-Star Games since Hall of Famer Allen Iverson started seven straight from 2000-06. Embiid is also the fourth player in franchise history to be named an All-Star starter at least five times. The only 76ers with more starting selections are Hall of Famers Julius Erving (11), Dolph Schayes (11) and Iverson (eight).
Embiid, and fellow All-Star starters Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James are the only players to be named starters in each of the last five All-Star Games. In his sixth NBA season, Embiid is the league’s third-leading scorer with a career-best 29.0 points per game along with 10.8 rebounds (10th in the NBA, sixth in the East), a career-high 4.3 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.4 blocks in 32.8 minutes per game. He’s the only NBA player with such averages in 2021-22.
He’s on pace for his fourth career season averaging at least 25 points and 10 rebounds per game, set to join Hall of Famer Charles Barkley as the only two 76ers ever with at least four such campaigns. As it stands, Embiid is one of five players in NBA history with career averages of at least 25 points and 10 rebounds, alongside Hall of Famers Elgin Baylor, Wilt Chamberlain, Karl Malone and Bob Pettit.
After earning the Eastern Conference Player of the Month award for December, marking the third such honor of his career, Embiid has continued his strong performances. Since Christmas Day, Embiid leads the NBA in scoring at 34.7 points per contest and is the only player averaging at least 30 points and 10 rebounds, while shooting at least 55-percent from the floor.
Embiid recently tied Hall of Famer Allen Iverson for the second-longest streak of 25-point games in franchise history with his 15th in a row. In that contest against New Orleans, he tallied a 42-point, 14-rebound double-double. It was his league-best sixth game of the year with at least 40 and 10. Among these outings was a career-high-tying 50-point game against the Magic on Jan. 19.
Over his last four games, Embiid has totaled 170 points and 51 rebounds. Since the 1976-77 NBA-ABA merger, Embiid is one of three players to post at least 170 points and 50-or-more rebounds over a four-game span.
Embiid leads the team with 27 20-point games, 21 30-point performances (second in NBA), six 40-point nights (first in league) and is one of six players with a 50-point outing.
Alongside Embiid in the starting lineup for the Eastern Conference is captain Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, DeMar DeRozan and Trae Young. For the West, the starters are captain LeBron James, Nikola Jokić, Andrew Wiggins, Ja Morant and Stephen Curry.
Fans accounted for 50 percent of the vote to determine the NBA All-Star Game starters, while current NBA players and a media panel accounted for 25 percent each.
After all votes were tallied, players were ranked in each conference by position (guard and frontcourt) within each of the three voting groups – fan votes, player votes and media votes. Each player’s score was calculated by averaging his weighted rank from the fan votes, the player votes and the media votes. The two guards and three frontcourt players with the best score in each conference were named NBA All-Star Game starters.
TNT will announce the NBA All-Star reserves, as selected by NBA head coaches, the evening of Thursday, Feb. 3 with the All-Star draft coming on Thursday, Feb 10.
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