Siakam and Lowry join Nick Nurse on Team Giannis for All-Star 2020

All-Star Weekend 2020 may begin on Valentine’s Day this year but there’s already love in the air between Giannis Antetokounmpo and a bevy of Raptors. He, along with fellow team captain LeBron James, just made their respective picks to fill out this year’s All-Star teams heading into the big game — and wouldn’t you know it, joining Nick Nurse and his staff with Giannis will be none other than Pascal Siakam and Kyle Lowry!

Start your tampering engines!

Before we get into that, let’s explain. The rules for the All-Star selections were simple: the first round was for the team’s starters, the second round for its reserves. LeBron got first pick, with Giannis second, until the remaining 22 players were picked. Not surprisingly, LeBron went with his Lakers teammate Anthony Davis first overall; equally as unsurprising, Giannis went with big man Joel Embiid. So far, so good, nothing really novel to report on.

But that’s when things took a turn for the meta, as Giannis’ next pick was Siakam — or as he calls him, his “second African brother.”

His second African brother! Careful now, don’t get too worked up, you don’t want your tampering engines to overheat just yet. It’s only the reigning league MVP getting hyped to play with the first time All-Star out of Toronto.

Later in the mix, there was Giannis again, playing the gentleman captain and acknowledging just what his next pick means to him:

Again, that’s the two main Raptors joining Giannis’ team for the All-Star Game, coached by Nick Nurse and Toronto’s staff. It all means nothing, or — and this is much more fun — it means Giannis is coming to Toronto in 2021. Sorry, I’m hard pressed to disagree with the notion that getting to play basketball with Siakam, Lowry, and Nurse won’t make Giannis a Raptors believer. That’s just my unbiased opinion.

In any case, here’s how the rest of the squads shaped up:

Now let’s return to our imaginations just running wild.