Filip Tomic
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Sunday’s 2024 NBA All-Star Game will be the pinnacle of this weekend’s festivities in Indianapolis, as all the best players gather to celebrate the game of basketball in what promises to be another memorable East vs West encounter. The fans, players and coaches voted in their favorites and although the West has more star power, the young and upcoming stars of the Eastern Conference certainly won’t back down from the challenge.
Tip-off is scheduled for 8:00 pm ET on TNT, let’s dive into some of my best bets for this year’s NBA All-Star Game.
Western Conference ML (-152)
The West is favored by 2.5 points, I would give them a slight edge in terms of talent — mainly because the East will be shorthanded on the center position with Joel Embiid missing the game due to injury. Both teams will be hungry to get the win, though. The East has a better all-time head-to-head record with 37 wins to 29 of the West. One of the reasons why the format change happened in 2018 was the dominance of the Western Conference, which had won 7 of the previous 10 games prior to the change by an average of 11.1 points.
However, with the last 3 of 4 all-star games being decided by single digits, I’m hoping that is the case with Sunday’s game, as well. This could be anyone’s game really. The West is slightly deeper overall, but the East has the hometown star in Tyrese Haliburton. Experienced players normally take a backseat in these games to the younger ones who are trying to make a name for themselves, however I’m not really sure if a LeBron James or a Kevin Durant will be willing to do that. Who knows how many of these they’ll get to be a part of before their careers are over? I’m taking the West win outright.
Check out my spread and total NBA All-Star Game predictions
Donovan Mitchell to score 20+ points (+122)
Mitchell has been on a roll for quite some time now — he is averaging 29 points, 7 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game in his last 20 outings. He’s failed to crack the 20-point mark in just 3 of those 20 games, while scoring at least 4 threes in 12 of them. We still don’t know who will start in place of the injured Embiid, if it’s Mitchell then chances are high he will continue filling it up on Sunday in Indy. Last year he had his best performance in an ASG by scoring 40 points and dishing out 10 assists, if it wasn’t for Tatum and his 55-point explosion he would have taken the MVP trophy home. With his stellar play over the past couple of months and the Cavs going 18-2 SU in their lats 20 games, some people have him in the regular-season MVP Award conversation. Mitchell is one of the those players that doesn’t mess around, so I think he goes out here and scores an easy 20 points.
Luka Doncic to win NBA All-Star Game MVP (+1900)
In previous years we haven’t seen Doncic try all that hard in the All-Star Games, he hs failed to crack the double-digit point mark in all 4 of them so far. Because of this we are getting an unbelievable +1900 odds for him to win award, which is just insane value. I believe he will actually care this time around, Luka has been a box score machine for the Dallas Mavericks this season and has the NBA’s highest-scoring game of the year with 73 points scored. Having this trophy on his resume would be a nice addition, a forward has won this award in 6 of the last 7 All-Star Games. After seeing Jayson Tatum get it last year by scoring 55 points (including 10 threes), I think Doncic might be encouraged to try and take over the game early. A foreign player has won this award only once so far, with Giannis Antetokounmpo doing it back in 2021. The hometown hero Haliburton also deserves consideration in my opinion, but with him being bothered by that hamstring injury I’m just not sure if he will go at 100% in this game. Let’s hope Doncic pulls off another memorable performance and leads the West to another victory.
