Predicting the 2025 All-NBA Teams

At the All-Star break, some unmistakable trends have emerged that are defining the 2024-25 season.

One of those unmistakable trends is player health, or rather a lack thereof.

Just today, it was announced that Victor Wembanyama would miss the rest of the season with a blood clot in his shoulder. Wemby is just the latest in a long line of unfortunate health issues that have plagued almost every team in the league.

Unfortunately, the lack of player health has ramifications not only for the NBA product but also for the players’ trophy cases. The 65-game rule, part of the new collective bargaining agreement ratified in the summer of 2023, requires players to play a minimum of 65 regular-season games to be eligible for postseason awards.

These awards include Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved Player, All-NBA teams and All-Defensive team honors.

Discovering safe NBA bets is easy for something like All-NBA, given the likelihood of several household-name stars earning the honors.

The Disqualifications

Here’s a list of players who have ALREADY missed too many games to qualify for All-NBA teams:

• Victor Wembanyama (out for season)
• Joel Embiid
• Luka Doncic
• Zion Williamson
• Jimmy Butler
• Ja Morant
• LaMelo Ball
• Paolo Banchero
• Franz Wagner
• Chet Holmgren
• Kawhi Leonard
• Kristaps Porzingis
• Jalen Johnson

Here are players on pace to fall short of the 82-game threshold. A player is ineligible if they miss 18+ games.

• Anthony Davis (missed 12 games; out indefinitely, and the Mavericks only have 26 games left)
• Giannis Antetokounmpo (has missed 12 games; questionable to return for Feb. 20)
• Kevin Durant (has missed 13 games already)
• Scottie Barnes (has missed 13 games already)
• Lauri Markkanen (has missed 13 games already)

For the purpose of this prediction, we will include Giannis and Durant (with an asterisk) as they are not officially disqualified from All-NBA honors. We won’t however, include Anthony Davis. According to Marc Stein, “no timetable” has been established for AD’s return from injury, and he may even need surgery.

1st team

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
• Jayson Tatum
• Giannis Antetokounmpo*
• Nikola Jokic
• Anthony Edwards

The first four here (SGA, Tatum, Giannis, Jokic) feel like locks as long as they meet the minimum 65-game threshold. These are the top four guys on the NBA’s MVP Ladder. The fifth spot, however, is much more of a toss-up. This spot would normally be occupied by the likes of Joel Embiid, Luka Doncic, or Anthony Davis, all of whom are perennial MVP candidates when healthy. The keyword here is “when”.

You could make the argument for three or four different guys in that fifth spot. KAT and Jalen Brunson are both putting together compelling arguments on the Knicks. New York’s two-headed snake may be punished for being too balanced, though, as neither of them is putting up truly gaudy averages.

Anthony Edwards is putting together the strongest case of all, though. He averaged 32.7 points per game on 60.7% true shooting over 16 games leading up to the All-Star break. He’s not only leading the league in made threes, but doing so at a near 43% clip. If he keeps this pace, he’ll join Steph Curry as the only player in NBA history to make 320+ 3-pointers in a season at a 40%+ clip.

Just 3.5 games back of the four seed in a gauntlet Western Conference, Ant leading the Wolves to home-court advantage in the postseason in the midst of a historic shooting season would cement his status as All-NBA First Team.

2nd team

• Donovan Mitchell 
• Kevin Durant*
• LeBron James
• Jalen Brunson 
• Karl-Anthony Towns 

Cavs fans will be upset to see two Knicks here, seeing as the Cavs are tied for the best record in the league, sitting a full eight games ahead of the third-place Knicks.

On paper, though, both Towns and Brunson are just having better individual seasons than any of the Cavs’ big three. While the Cavs’ ball movement and even scoring distribution make for some outstanding basketball, they aren’t always conducive to individual player awards. Mitchell will get the nod due to his name, even though many Cavs fans themselves argue that Garland may be the more deserving guard.

Speaking of names, LeBron and Durant feel like pretty safe bets here. There is certainly a household name bias that benefits future Hall of Famers in the voting process, and media voters are far from immune. Even if younger guys like Mobley and Jaren Jackson Jr. have far better team records, it’s hard to imagine them being selected over LeBron or Durant.

3rd team

• Steph Curry
• Jaren Jackson Jr.
• Damian Lillard
• Cade Cunningham
• Evan Mobley

There’s no way to keep everyone happy. The “snub” cries echo throughout NBA Twitter after the All-Star teams are announced, and that has nine more spots than the All-NBA teams.

There are a lot of tough choices to be made here. It’s unlikely that three Cavaliers will be chosen, and Garland will probably be the odd man out. The Rockets will most likely finish top five in the West, but Sengun is still young, isn’t a household name, and doesn’t have the eye-popping stat line that voters often look for.

There’s a good chance that at least one of the 15 guys here is disqualified due to the 65-game rule. In that case, here’s a short list of honorable mentions that seem like good candidates to steal a spot on the third team: Darius Garland, Alperen Sengun, Domantas Sabonis, Jaylen Brown, Kyrie Irving, Pascal Siakam, James Harden.