2023 NBA All-Star Weekend: Predictions, Best Bets, Odds

• Salt Lake City, Utah will host the NBA's 72nd edition of NBA All-Star Weekend!
• The NBA schedule is in full effect, allowing fans and bettors to enjoy three full days of All-Star festivities!
• Team LeBron and Team Giannis will close off 2023 NBA All-Star Weekend on Sunday evening!

NBA All-Star Weekend is a yearly event that celebrates the accomplishments of the NBA's most impressive players through the first phase of the regular season. Fans and bettors will get to enjoy the classic Rising Stars Challenge, Skills Challenge, All-Star Game, and more! This time out we'll be enjoying the league's 72nd NBA All-Star weekend in the 76th season!

NBA All-Star 2023 Schedule

NBA All-Star 2023 Event Breakdown

NBA All-Star Weekend presents a variety of events that celebrate the NBA and its players. Whether they be ceremonial or competitive, all events are crucial to the All-Star festivities.

We'll be focusing on the showcase events for the weekend: The Rising Stars Challenge, All-Star Saturday Night, and the NBA All-Star Game!

2023 Jordan Rising Stars Challenge

Odds taken from Caesers Sportsbook, 17 February 2023

The NBA Rising Stars Challenge celebrates the league's best youth, talent, and diversity! The league's best rookies and sophomores have competed since the competition's debut as The Rookie Challenge in 1994. The 2023 Jordan Rising Stars Challenge will continue the new format implemented in 2022!

28 players have been selected with 21 representing the league's rookies and sophomores while seven G-League players will also participate. Those 28 players have been distributed amongst four teams of seven players. The teams will compete against each other in a tournament format. Rather than being played on a time limit, the teams will compete to reach a target score. Each team will be coached by an NBA legend.

Let's take a look at the teams that will compete in this year's Rising Stars Challenge!

Team Pau (+180)

Honorary Coach: Pau Gasol

Team Deron (+170)

Honorary Coach: Deron Williams

Team Joakim (+350)

Honorary Coach: Joakim Noah

Team Jason (+500)

Honorary Coach: Jason Terry

WSN's Pick

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Team Pau to Win (+170)

We're taking Team Pau to win this year's Jordan Rising Stars Challenge. Led by last year's Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes and this year's leader for the award Paolo Banchero, Team Pau is stacked with talent. Surrounding them with able rookie shooters and a savvy sophomore point guard in Jose Alvarado gives Team Pau the all-around look that should serve them in this exciting pick-up tournament!

2023 Kia Skills Challenge

Odds taken from PointsBet, 17 February 2023.

The All-Star Skills Challenge is a competition that tests players' shooting, passing, and dribbling ability. While we have seen formats that include relays, head-to-heads, and positional competition, NBA fans will enjoy the new format implemented in 2022!

Under the new format for the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, three teams of three players will compete in a four-round competition that tests their overall basketball skill. The teams are as follows:

Team Antetokounmpo (+450)

Team Rookies (+135)

Team Jazz (-110)

Here is a round-by-round explanation of the Skills Challenge and Points system.

• Round 1: Team Relay (All Teams)
  • All players from each team will participate in a timed relay. The team with the fastest time will win the round.
• Round 2: Team Passing (All Teams)
  • Each team will have 30 seconds to complete passes into three oversized moving targets at varying distances. Each team must make at least one pass attempt to each target, and individual players cannot make consecutive passes to the same target.
• Round 3: Team Shooting (All Teams)
  • All players will compete with two teammates rebounding. Players have 30 seconds to shoot from five different positions on the court.
• Challenge Points Tiebreaker: Half-court Shots (Two Teams)
  • The two teams that reach the final will compete with each player attempting to make a half-court shot. Team 1 will set the time to beat with a made shot or the expiration of the clock (max time of 1 minute, 30 seconds). The team with the fastest time will be declared the winner.

WSN's Pick

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Team Jazz to Win (-110)

The Kia Skills Challenge is all about overall skill and we're going to take the most diversified team in this matchup. Team Jazz may have an interesting piece in Walker Kessler, but guards Jordan Clarkson and Collin Sexton are rapid point guards who can also step in to make a jumper from anywhere on the court. The host team looks to have the balance to win this event!

Starry 3-Point Contest

The Three-Point Contest is an event that tests the NBA's best shooters to see who will be the three-point king! Participants will shoot from five racks, beginning in either corner of the three-point arc. Made three-point shots are awarded one or two points based on the ball sunk - one point for a normal ball, two points for the colored ball.

The reigning champion of the Three-Point Competition is Karl-Anthony Towns.

Three-Point Participants

Odds taken from DraftKings Sportsbook, 17 February 2023.

WSN's Pick:

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Buddy Hield to Win (+425) 

It's not the easiest competition to predict, but guards have dominated the three-point competition in All-Star Weekend history. That's why we're taking Indiana Pacers guard Buddy Hield to win his second three-point contest title in Salt Lake City. A pure three-point shooter who has already hit 230 threes on 42.6% this season, Hield looks set to take down the field.

AT&T Slam Dunk Contest

Odds taken from DraftKings Sportsbook, 17 February 2023.

The marquee event of All-Star Saturday Night, the NBA Slam Dunk Contest brings together some of the league's best high fliers into competition.

This year's Slam Dunk Contest will be a two-round competition. Five judges will score each dunk on a scale of 6 to 10 for a total of up to 50 points combined.

All competitors will get two dunks in the first round, while the two players with the highest combined score will get two dunks in the final round. The dunker with the highest combined final round score will be named the champion!

WSN's Pick:

Mac McClung (+160) 

While this year's NBA Dunk Contest may not have the name recognition to get people excited, this may be one of the most exciting batches of high fliers gathered in recent memory. For the 2023 Dunk Contest we're taking the unheralded Mac McClung - who was recently signed by the Philadelphia 76ers. McClung's dunks are incredible, creative, and at his size his vertical is always impressive.

2023 NBA All-Star Game

Odds taken from FanDuel Sportsbook, 17 February 2023

The NBA All-Star Game is an annual celebration that sees the best players from the Eastern and Western Conferences compete in an exhibition match.

Coaches and staff for the event are representatives of the top-ranked team in each conference. This year's coaches will be Joe Mazzulla of the Boston Celtics and Michael Malone of the Denver Nuggets.

The starting lineups of each team are selected based on a combination of fan, player, and media vote. The league's coaches select the remainder of the roster.

The leading vote-getters captain their respective teams and select players via a draft format. This year's captains are Giannis Antetokounmpo and LeBron James.

Eastern Conference All-Stars (Team Giannis) (+130)

* Kevin Durant will not participate due to injury, Pascal Siakam was selected as his replacement.

^ Denotes a player who was selected to the All-Star game prior to being traded to the Western Conference.

Western Conference All-Stars (Team LeBron) (-154)

* Stephen Curry and Zion Williamson will not participate due to injury, Anthony Edwards and De'Aaron Fox were chosen as their replacements.

WSN's Pick:

Team LeBron to Win (-154)

It's difficult to say which team will win due to the fact that the entirety of each team's roster won't be decided until right before the match itself. That said, we're expecting Team LeBron to win its sixth straight All-Star Game. Even with Stephen Curry and Zion Williamson unavailable, don't be surprised to see the likes of Luka Doncic and Nikola Jokic to take over.