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The All-Star Game has always given us the best the NBA has to offer. Granted, it is almost never competitive, but the best players in the league come together to give their fans a true show. Although the NBA All-Star Weekend is a three-day event, the main part is always going to be the All-Star Game, and this year was no different. It gave us an incredible show, a LeBron James iconic fadeaway jumper as the game-winner, and a 50-point game by Stephen Curry. This has inspired us to give you the ranking of the four greatest NBA All-Star Game performances of all time, including Curry's masterclass.
Stephen Curry and Greatest All-Star Game performances of all time
4) LeBron James, 2011
This one is iconic, but it is fourth simply because the East ended up losing that game. The All-Star Game in 2011 was great for many reasons, and it was the first All-Star appearance of James since he left Cleveland to join the Miami Heat. He earned the ire of the entire NBA community by doing that, so he was understood as the villain of the whole league. That is how he ended up being on the court, and he truly gave everyone a show to remember.
Although, as it was said above, the East lost the game due to a Kobe Bryant 37-point outing, LeBron James dominated all sides of the All-Star Game. He scored 29 points, tied with Amar'e Stoudamire for most in the Eastern Conference team, but also added 12 rebounds and 10 assists. This was the second triple-double in the history of the All-Star Game after Michael Jordan did it in 1997. Since then, Dwyane Wade and Kevin Durant also had triple-doubles in the 2012 and 2017 games, respectively, but they were not as iconic as the King doing it in the Staples Center in 2011.
3) Anthony Davis, 2017
It is tough to make this list without mentioning the Unibrow and the record that he set in the 2017 All-Star Game. Of course, there are many iconic games and performances out there, but when someone scores 52 points in an All-Star Game, that is worth putting on this list. In around 31 minutes on the court, Davis scored a fairly efficient 52 points and added 10 boards. He shot 26 of 39 and did it all while not making one three-pointer in four attempts.
He won the MVP of the game, of course, and he did it over his teammate on the Western Conference team, Russell Westbrook who scored 41 points in 19 minutes off the bench. What makes this performance even more iconic is that the All-Star Game was played in the Smoothie King Center, where Davis was playing at the time. All of these factors coming together, with the scoring record obviously, give us the third-best performance in the All-Star Game history.
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2) Stephen Curry, 2022
The Stephen Curry 2022 performance did fall two points short of the scoring record for the All-Star Game, but it was incredible. While Davis scored a ton of his shoots in the paint, the way Curry scored from every part of the floor was simply mesmerizing to watch. Also, without any disrespect to Davis and his record, of course, the way Curry played to the crowd that started the night booing him made it a much better experience. The All-Star Game is one of flair and of playing to the people that voted these individuals in the game itself, so all the showboating and theatrics that Curry pulled were simply iconic.
In the end, in the 2022 NBA All-Star game, Curry scored a cool 50 points, shot 17 from 30 from the field, and an incredible 16 from 27 from three-point range. This included corner three-point makes in which he turned around and celebrated before the shot went in, threes with massive range with hesitation moves before, and contested three-point bombs that Curry got us used to.
If Stephen Curry just got one more, he would also have the record, but he was the MVP, had a massive part in Team LeBron winning the game, and most importantly, made such a good show that the crowd turned the boo's into endless applauses of praise at the end of the game.
1) Michael Jordan, 1988
The first stop has to be reserved for one of the greatest players in the history of all pro-sports. Now, this place could have also gone to Magic Johnson's 1992 All-Star Game and his triumphant return to the NBA, but the aura of the 1988 All-Star Weekend for Jordan was simply too huge to ignore. While not linked to the game itself, Jordan won the 1988 NBA Slam-Dunk Contest in amazing fashion, creating one of the most iconic images in the history of the league, dunking from the free-throw line. However, in the game, he was even better.
Jordan scored a cool 40 points which does not sound like much, compared to 50 and 52 point outings, but it was done on 17 of 23 shooting and, more importantly, 16 of those 40 came in the last couple of minutes of the game. Jordan proved once again how competitive he can be and dragged an overmatched Eastern Conference team to a 138-133 win, even though just three more players on his team scored more than 10 points. The Dunk Contest win, the All-Star Game Performance, the late-game heroics, and the generally iconic status of this weekend for Air Jordan simply requires us to put him where he belongs – number one.
Nonetheless, what are your (Stephen Curry related or not) greatest NBA All-Star Game performances of all-time?
