The eyes of the basketball world are on Cleveland this weekend with a full slate of NBA All-Star events. After individual competitions on Saturday, the best of the best take the floor on Sunday evening for the 2022 NBA All-Star Game. LeBron James and Kevin Durant serve as captains for the teams, though Durant (knee) is injured and will not play. Draymond Green (back) is also on the sideline for Team Durant, with James Harden (hamstring) out of action for Team LeBron.
Tipoff is at 8 p.m. ET in Cleveland. Caesars Sportsbook lists Team LeBron as a 5.5-point favorite, while the over-under, or total number of points Vegas thinks will be scored, is 321.5 in the latest 2022 NBA All-Star Game odds. Before making any 2022 NBA All-Star Game picks, be sure to check out the 2022 NBA All-Star Weekend predictions from SportsLine expert Mike Barner.
Barner is a respected NBA Fantasy expert, both season-long and DFS, whose work has appeared in Sports Illustrated and on Yahoo, RotoWire and KFFL. He has also been featured on ESPN Radio. He digs deep into the data, examining team trends and projecting game outcomes. With his unmatched analysis, Barner spots opportunities in a unique way.
Barner’s expertise has been on full display lately. He is on an amazing 85-67-2 run in against-the-spread NBA picks, returning over $1,100 to $100 players. He also has an incredible feel for NBA All-Star Weekend. In 2021, Barner called the winner of the 3-point Contest, the Dunk Contest and hit both the spread and over-under in the All-Star Game itself. Anybody who followed his picks saw some huge returns.
Now, he has zeroed in on Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game 2022, analyzed the rosters and matchups, and released a confident against-the-spread pick. Head to SportsLine now to see it. Here are the Team LeBron vs. Team Durant lines:
NBA All-Star Game 2022 spread: LeBron -5.5NBA All-Star Game 2022 over-under: 321.5 pointsNBA All-Star Game 2022 money line: LeBron -220, Durant +180Team LeBron: James is seeking a fifth consecutive All-Star victoryTeam Durant: Jayson Tatum replaces the injured Durant (knee) as a starter
Featured Game | Team LeBron All Stars vs. Team Durant All Stars
2022 NBA All-Star Game format
Team LeBron and Team Durant will represent charitable organizations, with Team LeBron playing for the Kent State I Promise Scholars Program and Team Durant playing for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. The winner of each quarter will be tracked, with the winner receiving additional funds for its organization, and then a Final Target Score will be implemented to determine the overall winner.
The Final Target Score, sometimes referred to as an Elam Ending, will be 24 points higher than the leading team’s total score through three quarters. That leads to an untimed fourth quarter, and the first team to reach the Final Target Score will be victorious.
Why Team LeBron can cover
Team LeBron enters as the favorite and with good reason. Teams captained by James have won the last four All-Star matchups, and James himself will be playing in his 18th All-Star Game, tied for the most in NBA history. While the Lakers have struggled this season, James isn’t the reason, as he is averaging 29.1 points, 7.9 rebounds and 6.5 assists per game. He is also shooting 52.2 percent from the floor, and James is red-hot as the All-Star break arrives, scoring 25 points or more in 23 straight games and averaging 31.7 points and 9.3 rebounds per contest over that sample.
James is then flanked by Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is the reigning All-Star MVP, and Antetokounmpo is a legitimate MVP candidate with 82 combined points in his last two games before the All-Star break. With that combination of physicality and force combining with the game’s best shooter in Stephen Curry, Team LeBron will be incredibly difficult to defend.
Why Team Durant can cover
The absence of Durant will get attention, and rightly so, but Team Durant is led by the betting favorite to win the 2021-22 NBA MVP award. Joel Embiid sits atop the field at Caesars Sportsbook for the league’s top individual honor, and he is averaging 29.6 points and 11.2 rebounds per game this season. Embiid boasts a 61 percent true shooting mark, and he has been even better in recent days, averaging 33.4 points and 11.5 rebounds per game in the last 25 contests. Embiid is also a high-end defender, and Team Durant can play a dominant defensive center for all 48 minutes if they also want to deploy Rudy Gobert when Embiid rests.
In support, Team Durant has two dynamic lead guards in Ja Morant and Trae Young. Morant is the centerpiece of a top-three team in the Western Conference, averaging 32.3 points, 7.0 assists and 6.1 rebounds per game in the last 14 contests. Young is averaging 27.8 points and 9.3 assists per game, and he is one of the most creative and dazzling passers and long-range shooters in the sport.
How to make 2022 NBA All-Star Game picks
Barner is leaning under on the total, and he’s also found a critical X-factor that has him jumping all over one side of the spread. You can only see what it is, and which team you should back in the 2022 NBA All-Star Game at SportsLine.
Who wins the NBA All-Star Game 2022? And what crucial X-factor makes one side a must-back? Visit SportsLine right now to see which team you should be backing on Sunday, all from the SportsLine expert who crushed his All-Star picks last year, and find out.
2022 NBA All-Star Game Rosters
Team Durant:
Kevin Durant
Joel Embiid
Ja Morant
Jayson Tatum
Andrew Wiggins
Trae Young
LaMelo Ball
Devin Booker
Rudy Gobert
Zach LaVine
Khris Middleton
Dejounte Murray
Karl-Anthony Towns
Draymond Green
Team LeBron
LeBron James
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Stephen Curry
DeMar DeRozan
Nikola Jokic
Jarrett Allen
Jimmy Butler
Luka Doncic
Darius Garland
James Harden
Donovan Mitchell
Chris Paul
Fred VanVleet
