Bradley Beal named NBA All-Star starter for first time

Just a year ago, Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal was an afterthought in NBA All-Star voting. As a matter of fact, he acknowledges that he was snubbed. Now a year later, Beal has been voted an Eastern Conference starter in the NBA All-Star Game on March 7th in Atlanta.

Beal tallied 3,485,051 fan votes, the most among guards in the Eastern Conference, and finished first among guards in the media and player voting.  He will be making his third career All-Star appearance and his first career start.

Bradley Beal on being a #NBAAllStar starter. pic.twitter.com/LuCYwodIzt

— Carita Parks (@CaritaCParks) February 19, 2021

Beal currently leads the NBA in scoring with a career-high average of 32.8 points per game to go along with a career-high 5.2 rebounds per game.  He is also averaging 4.7 assists per game while shooting .473 from the field.  He tallied a career-high and franchise tying high of 60 points on January 6th at Philadelphia.

The nine-year pro has posted 16 games of 30+ points, which ranks second in the league, and is tied for the league lead with three games of 40+ points.  Beal began the season with a 17-game streak of 25+ points, which surpassed Michael Jordan’s streak in 1988-89, and ranks as the fifth-longest in league history and the longest streak to start a season since the 1976 NBA-ABA merger.

He has scored 786 points in the team’s first 24 games, which marks the most points scored through a player’s first 24 games in franchise history. Despite the Wizards shaky start, Beal has finally reaped the benefits of his hard work from the perspective of the NBA All-Star game.

Beal joins the Brooklyn Nets’ Kevin Durant, the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Joel Embiid and the Nets’ Kyrie Irving as Eastern Conference starters. Fans, players, and media determined the starters for the 2021 NBA All-Star Game, with fans accounting for 50% of the vote while the players and media accounted for 25% each.

Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James and Kevin Durant who are the NBA All-Star Game starters who led their respective conferences in fan votes during NBA All-Star Voting 2021, will serve as team captains for the Team LeBron vs. Team Durant matchup and draft the rosters from the pool of players voted as starters and reserves in each conference.  TNT will air the 2021 NBA All-Star Draft on Thursday, March 4 at 8 p.m. ET.