The Warriors will have four players in the NBA All-Star Game for the first time in their franchise history and become just the eighth team in league annals to have a quartet of players in the game.
Draymond Green and Klay Thompson were announced as reserves on Thursday for the Western Conference squad, joining teammates Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, who were selected as starters a week ago.
Unlike Curry and Durant, who were chosen via an aggregate vote of fans, players and media, the reserves were selected by a vote of NBA coaches for the 66th annual game to held Feb. 19 at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. It is the third straight season Thompson has been selected and the second consecutive year for Green.
The Warriors have had three players selected for the All-Star Game 12 times previously, including last year when Curry, Thompson and Green made it. Technically, they did have four players ultimately named as All-Stars in 1967-68, but one was replacing injured Nate Thurmond in the game. A team could only have a maximum of three players represented before 1973, but that season, Clyde Lee, Rudy LaRusso and Jim King were All-Stars. Lee, however, was a replacement for original selection Thurmond.
The Warriors are the first team with four players in the game since the 2015 Atlanta Hawks, but all four of those Atlanta players were reserves, and one of them, guard Kyle Korver, was selected an injury replacement.
Golden State is the first team since the 1998 Los Angeles Lakers to have two starters and two reserves picked to the same squad. That year, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant were picked as starters while Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel were named as reserves.
Green was a considered a virtual lock as one of the dynamic all-around players in the league and a leading candidate for NBA Defensive Player of the Year. The fifth-year power forward is averaging 10.7 points, 8.5 rebounds, 7.6 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.4 blocked shots per game. Green leads all NBA forwards in steals (third overall) and is second to Cleveland's LeBron James in assists.
The only real suspense was whether Thompson would grab one of the final spots in a competitive battle to make the West's 12-man roster. While his offensive statistics have ebbed down slightly with the Warriors having added Durant, the sixth-year shooting guard is still averaging 21.1 points per game (just one point less than last season) and he still regarded as one of the best defensive guards in the league. Thompson may have helped his own cause with a career-high 60-point game against the Indiana Pacers on Dec. 5, the highest-scoring game by any player in the NBA this season.
Green and Thompson certainly weren't hurt by the fact that they also played on the USA National Team that won the gold medal at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Durant was a member of that team as well.
In addition to the four players the Warriors placed on the roster, the West squad will be coached by Warriors head coach Steve Kerr and his staff.
Also selected as reserves for the West squad were Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook, Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins, Memphis' Marc Gasol, Utah's Gordon Hayward and the Los Angeles Clippers' DeAndre Jordan.
Eastern Conference reserves announced included Cleveland's Kevin Love, Boston's Isaiah Thomas, Atlanta's Paul Millsap, Washington's John Wall, Indiana's Paul George, Toronto's Kyle Lowry and Charlotte's Kemba Walker.
