BROOKLYN – The NBA announced today that Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant and guard Kyrie Irving have been selected by fans, current NBA players and a media panel to start in the 2023 NBA All-Star Game, which will take place on Sunday, Feb. 19, at Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City. Brooklyn is the only team with two All-Star starters this season.
Durant has been named an All-Star for the 13th time in his career and an All-Star Game starter for the 11th time. He has been selected as an All-Star for the 13th straight season that he has played (2010-23), with the lone exception being the 2020 All-Star Game after he missed the 2019-20 season due to injury. The only active player with more All-Star Game selections than Durant is LeBron James (selected for the 19th time tonight), and Durant is just the 15th player in NBA history to be selected to 13 or more All-Star games. A two-time All-Star Game MVP (2012 and 2019) who holds the second-highest scoring average in All-Star Game history (25.0 points per game), Durant is averaging 29.7 points (eighth in the league and fourth in the East), 6.7 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.5 blocks (ninth in the league) in 36.0 minutes per contest across 39 games. He has led Brooklyn to a 26-13 record in games he’s appeared in, which would rank as the third-best winning percentage (66.7 percent) in the league this season. Durant is shooting a career-high 55.9 percent from the field, including the highest midrange field goal percentage for any player across the last 25 seasons (57.1 percent), 37.6 percent from 3-point range and a career-high and league-leading 93.4 percent from the free-throw line this season. He has also posted a career-best field goal percentage from 2-point range (62.2 percent), as well as a career-high true shooting percentage (67.3 percent). Durant has notched 30 or more points 19 times this season, including three games with 40 or more points, and has reached the 20-point mark in 36 of his 39 games played this season. He entered the 2022-23 season at 21st on the NBA’s all-time scoring list with 25,526 career points and has ascended seven spots to 14th all-time with 26,684 points after tallying 1,158 points this season (10th in the league).
Irving has been named an All-Star for the eighth time in his career and an All-Star Game starter for the sixth time, including each of his last five All-Star selections (2017-19, 2021 and 2023). The 2014 All-Star Game MVP has appeared in 36 games for Brooklyn this season, registering averages of 26.8 points (13th in the league and eighth in the East), 5.1 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 1.0 steals in 36.9 minutes per game (fourth in the league), while shooting 48.7 percent from the field, including a career-high 57.2 percent from 2-point range, 37.1 percent from distance and 90.3 percent from the free-throw line (eighth in the league). He has registered 30 or more points 13 times, including each of the last four games, which represents the second-longest 30-point streak of his career and just one game shy of matching the longest streak of 30-point games for a player in Nets NBA history. Irving is on pace to register his first full season averaging 25 or more points, five or more rebounds and five or more assists per game and is one of just four players in the East notching those averages, joining Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Pascal Siakam. Irving is the league’s leading fourth-quarter scorer (9.2 points per game) and is the only player in the league to score 20 or more points in a fourth-quarter three times this season (no other player has done it more than once).
Durant (2021-23) and Irving (2021 and 2023) are the only Nets to ever be selected to start multiple All-Star games. They join Jason Kidd (2008), Vince Carter (2005), Kenny Anderson (1994) and Derrick Coleman (1994) as players selected to start an All-Star game in Nets history. Durant is also one of four players in Nets NBA history to earn three or more All-Star Game selections, joining Jason Kidd (five), Vince Carter (three) and Buck Williams, and is the third Net to be selected to three straight All-Star games, joining Carter (2005-07) and Kidd (2002-04).