Golden State’s Stephen Curry and Phoenix’s Devin Booker were 3-point champions at the NBA All-Star Weekend before, and they will try to win the trophy again on Sunday.
The league revealed on Tuesday the 15 players who will participate in court events other than the All-Star Game in Atlanta, with the overwhelming majority of them having a double journey between these competitions and the game itself.
Curry, Booker, the Boston duo of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, Zach LaVine of Chicago and Donovan Mitchell of Utah – all of them All-Stars – will be the six contestants in the 3-point competition.
Stars Luka Doncic of Dallas, Domantas Sabonis of Indiana, Julius Randle of New York, Nikola Vucevic of Orlando and Chris Paul of Phoenix will be five of the six contestants in the skills competition. They will join Robert Covington of Portland, the only current NBA player who graduated from a historically black college and university.
Covington went to the state of Tennessee. HBCUs will be an important part of the All-Star night, and the league previously announced that scholarship funds that will support black students will receive an influx of at least $ 2.5 million from the events in Atlanta.
The only event that will not include any All-Stars is the dunk contest, which will feature debutants Anfernee Simons from Portland, Cassius Stanley from Indiana and Obi Toppin from New York.
The dunk contest will have two rounds and will be judged by five former champions: Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins, Dee Brown, Jason Richardson, Josh Smith and Spud Webb. It will take place in the interval of the All-Star Game, while the skills competition and the 3-point competition will take place before the game.
Only 18 teams will be represented on the court on the All-Star night, much less than normal due to reasons such as the pandemic, the one-night nature of this event and the elimination of the Rising Stars game this season.
None of the winners of last season’s individual event – champion Derrick Jones Jr., who was with Miami at the time and Portland now, skills champion Bam Adebayo of Miami and 3-point champion Buddy Hield of Sacramento – are coming back to defend titles this season.
Atlanta, Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, Memphis, Miami, Minnesota, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, San Antonio and Toronto have no one participating in the All-Star evening events.