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While we won’t know whether Dallas Mavericks star rookie Luka Doncic made the All-Star Game until Thursday, Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium revealed on Friday that the 19-year-old will take part in at least one All-Star Weekend competition:
Shams Charania @ShamsCharania
Dallas Mavericks rookie star Luka Doncic plans to participate in the Skills Competition at All-Star weekend in Charlotte, sources tell @TheAthleticNBA @WatchStadium.
The Skills Challenge will be held on Saturday, February 16, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Players are asked to run through a basketball obstacle course of sorts to test their ball-handling, passing and shooting skills. It is an eight-player knockout-style tournament, which Brooklyn Nets guard Spencer Dinwiddie won last year.
Doncic looks like a natural fit for the competition given his versatile skill set. He’s one of the smoothest ball-handlers and passers in the game and is hitting 35.6 percent of his threes despite a recent 5-of-27 slump from beyond the arc.
Regardless of the other Skills Challenge participants, chances are Doncic will emerge as one of the clear favorites, if not the leader of the pack.
The real question is whether Doncic will be the first rookie named to the NBA All-Star Game since Blake Griffin in 2011. Doncic’s resume is stellar, with his 19.9 points, 6.8 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game. The Mavs are also just three wins away from matching their victory total from last year despite having 35 more contests left on the regular-season schedule.
Doncic finished fifth among Western Conference frontcourt players in the final All-Star voting results, and his peers notably thought highly of him as well with an eighth-place mark. NBA coaches are the sole arbiters of the All-Star reserve pool, however, with the 10 starters having already been chosen.
The reserves will be revealed Thursday during TNT NBA Tip-Off, which begins at 7 p.m. ET.
from A Viral Update http://bit.ly/2G2AaZ4
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