National Basketball Association

Domantas Sabonis Named to BBVA Rising Stars Game at All-Star Weekend

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 9:13 p.m. ET

Fansided, Tamberlyn Richardson/FanSided via Thunderous Intentions

Today the NBA announced the rookie and sophomore players who’ll participate in the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge Game. Joining the team is OKC Thunder rookie Domantas Sabonis.

Continuing the recent trend the NBA selected rookie and sophomore players based on where they are from. Once more the teams will feature rookies and sophomores playing together either for the American squad or the World squad.

World Team:

Domantas Sabonis has started in all 45 games for the OKC Thunder registering 6.0 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.2 assists averages.

USA Team:

Omissions:

Noticeably omissions from the teams are both Raptors rookies Pascal Siakam (Cameroon) and Jakob Poeltl (Austria). Both players would have ended up on the World team if selected. Siakam is an odd omission given he has ranked on pundits Top Ten lists since the start of the season. Perhaps his recent regression in minutes played into the decision.

Conversely, 3 other players who have seen an uptick in minutes are also missing from the squad: Dejounte Murray and two Nets: Isaiah Whitehead and Caris LeVert. Both Murray and LeVert have only recently experienced additional playing time which may have hurt their bid to make the squads.

Selection Process:

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The teams were selected by assistant coaches who each filled out ballots. On the ballot each staff selected 4 backcourt and frontcourt players and two additional players for each team. The other caveat mandated was three rookies and sophomores had to be selected for each team.

Coaching Staffs:

Coaches for the game will come from the staffs coaching the big game on Sunday. The successful coaches come from the team with the best record on February 5, 2016 in each Conference. No team can coach in back to back years, therefore the Cavaliers and Spurs cannot repeat.

Since the Golden State Warriors can’t be caught by that date that means one of the coaches will be an Assistant Coach from Steve Kerr’s staff. In the East that decision is still open with teams still jockeying near the top of the ladder.

Potential candidates are the Toronto Raptors (currently second), who hold a game and a half lead over the Boston Celtics in third. There is an outside chance the Hawks (2 games back of Raptors) or Wizards (3 games back) could also get the nod. With both Toronto or Boston on 4 and 3 game losing streaks respectively this is an outside chance of this occurring.

The Game:

This format of World versus the USA is the format being utilized for the third consecutive year. Once again the game will occur on Friday night (February 17th) at the Smoothie King Center with the tip at 9 PM Eastern Standard Time (8PM CT).

Want your voice heard? Join the team!

Sponsoring the event once again is the official bank of the NBA: BBVA Compass. The game will be televised on TNT Overtime and NBA Canada with ESPN Radio also broadcasting.