Just days after the final rosters for the 2024 NBA All-Star games were announced, the league has now announced that Hawks’ Trae Young and Raptors’ Scottie Barnes have been chosen as replacements for the Eastern Conference All-Star team.
Young and Barnes have been chosen to replace the injured Joel Embiid and Julius Randle on the East roster.
When a player chosen for an All-Star game is injured and is unable to participate, the decision of who replaces them falls on the league commissioner Adam Silver.
Meanwhile, we also cannot ignore the fact that the 76ers star and reigning MVP Joel Embiid was not just a member of the All-Star but a starter as well.
Now, the decision on who will replace Embiid in the starting five depends on the Eastern Conference head coach Doc Rivers, who was also Embiid’s coach with the Philadelphia 76ers. Paolo Banchonaro and Bam Adebayo are the two other big men on the East roster if Doc Rivers decides to stick to the previous line-up.
Young and Barnes faced tough competition during the initial All-Star selections, with Barnes narrowly missing out to Adebayo, Banchero, Randle, and Jaylen Brown, possibly influenced by the impressive success of those players’ teams this season.
Similarly, Young, despite being on a team below .500, had to contend with a highly competitive field of Eastern Conference guards, which may have contributed to his omission.
This will be the third All-Star selection for Trae Young though his first two selections were as starters, while this will be Barnes’ first-ever All-Star selection.
On the other hand, all 12 Western Conference selections are healthy, so we should not expect any more replacement picks, which means assuming that no player will be injured, we have finalized the roster of 24 players set to participate in the midseason showcase on February 18 in Indianapolis.
