Three Warriors added to All-Star Saturday

Former champion Buddy Hield returns to the Three-Point Contest, while Draymond Green and Moses Moody will be teaming up for the Skills

Steph Curry will be playing in the All-Star Game, as one of the Western Conference’s five selected starters and as the lead point guard on Team Shaq. But three other Warriors are competing in All-Star Saturday games, including a former Three-Point Contest champion, and eight Warriors in total will be part of All-Star Weekend festivities.

Buddy Hield will be returning for his fourth appearance in the Three-Point Contest, which he won in 2020 as a member of the Sacramento Kings. Hield put up a score of 27 points in the final to edge Devin Booker, which is the 10th-best score in any Three-Point Contest round, and the 5th-best in a final. Granted, there’s been a fair amount of Three-Point Contest inflation thanks to the addition of four extra money balls and two long-range “Starry” balls, but everyone has been playing by those rules for years, and most people haven’t beaten Buddy.

For the Skills Challenge, the NBA traditionally chooses someone to represent the host team. This year, they’re using two-man teams, and it doesn’t sound like Steph Curry wanted to compete, since he’s already won two Three-Point Contests and a Skills Challenge in the past.

So from a limited group of choices, especially after four players left in the Jimmy Butler trade, the NBA selected Draymond Green and Moses Moody to compete against three teams: Victor Wembaynama and former Warrior Chris Paul (Team Spurs), Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley (Team Cavs), and rookie French teenagers Zaccahrie Risacher and Alex Sarr (Team Rooks). Is Moody particularly known for his skills? No, but he’s a better choice than Kevon Looney, Gui Santos, or Jackson Rowe.

The Warriors already had two players competing in Rising Stars, and now they’ll have a third. Brandin Podziemski is replacing the injured Cason Wallace on Team T, Tim Hardaway, Sr.’s team. He’ll be teaming up with Sarr, Risacher, and fellow All-Rookie first-teamer Jaime Jaquez, Jr. Trayce Jackson-Davis is on Chris Mullin’s team, along with Zach Edey and Lakers Hornets Lakers rookie Dalton Knecht.

Pat Spencer is on the G League team, coached by Jeremy “Linsanity” Lin. Quinten Post will be playing in the G League Up Next game on Sunday, though they haven’t separated the players into teams yet. He’s in a player pool along with former Warriors Lester Quinones, Jeff Dowtin, Jr., and summer sensation Daeqwon Plowden.

If that wasn’t enough Warriors already, the Slam Dunk Contest is going “We Believe” with their judges. Along with Tracy McGrady and Kevin Garnett, the judges will include Baron Davis and two-time Dunk Contest champion Jason Richardson. Richardson won in 2003 and 2004, then was robbed by the judges and Fred Jones in 2005.

It’s written into the bylaws of this site that a writer cannot mention Baron Davis and dunking in the same paragraph without embedding the clip of Davis dunking during the Warriors’ second-round series against the Utah Jazz in 2007. Sorry, Andrei Kirilenko, but I could lose my job!

No word yet on whether Davis will be wearing a girdle to judge the Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday.

At this point, only Jimmy Butler, Kevon Looney, Gary Payton II, Santos, Rowe and the injured Jonathan Kuminga will not be participating in All-Star events, though we assume that NBA officials are rushing to get a Big Face Coffee kiosk up and running by Friday.

The home team will be well-represented this weekend. Who knew this Warriors team was so full of stars?