NBA All-Star draft to begin with reserves in apparent effort to avoid embarrassment for last player picked

The All-Star Draft typically begins with starters

The NBA announced well in advance that it planned to tweak the format of this season's All-Star draft. Rather than hold it in advance of the event, teams for the 2023 All-Star Game will be selected on Sunday, right before the game itself. But on Thursday, TNT's Ernie Johnson mentioned another change on Inside the NBA that had not been previously reported: rather than selecting the eight starters first, captains LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo will begin the draft by selecting the 14 available reserves.

This decision was seemingly made in an effort to avoid the embarrassment that would come with a player being singled out for getting selected last. There are of course a number of problems that come with this approach.

• Someone is still going to be the final pick of the reserve round. Everyone will know who that player is. Functionally, there is no difference between getting picked last in the reserve round this season or any other besides the transparent attempt to conceal the obvious.
• The reserve pool is far deeper and more diverse than the starter pool. Strategically, it makes sense to choose reserves that complement the existing starters, who will probably get more minutes. Now, starters will need to be chosen to complement reserves.
• Someone still needs to be picked last in the starter round. Given his status as the newcomer to this event, Lauri Markkanen is the likeliest player to hear his name called last overall in the draft. That wouldn't be a great look with the event taking place at his home arena in Salt Lake City.

If anything, one might argue that there is going to be a Streisand Effect here. There used to be a few Twitter jokes about the player who got picked last, and last season was especially notable as the draft took place on the same day that James Harden was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, so Kevin Durant went to great lengths not to pick him, but ultimately nobody paid much mind to who was taken last. Now, however, the league has effectively shined a spotlight on this otherwise minor issue, which will likely lead to more coverage than it otherwise would have.

Ultimately, there's no shame in getting picked last for the All-Star Game because... well... it's the All-Star Game. These are supposed to be the 24 best basketball players in the world. Everyone at the All-Star Game is great. There's no need to be embarrassed if the other players present are slightly greater.